Ad hominems, etc. should be legit

[Al B. Sure!]

Whaleboy:

It's like questioning the means by which a player joins a football team with a view to seeing which team is better. The only way to tell which team is better is to let them play!

But when critiqueing an artist, don't you also critique the idea or thing that inspired the work as well as the work itself? You critique a Picasso painting on its own grounds AND that which it attempted to represent... why did Picasso choose this idea/thing? was it a good one to choose? did he fulfill the idea's/thing's unconcealment or portrayal that is the work?

Picasso may be a hard example what with him being a cubist but take Da Vinci's Mona Lisa... not only do you judge the actual work itself but also the thing from which the work was derived. If Da Vinci chose to paint a woman from the start and not himself... if Da Vinci painted another woman with different characteristics... if Da Vinci chose to not portray the Mona Lisa with her grin... all these are pre-work things from which a different work could have been derived.

Those pre-work things are the emotions to the logical position that is the work. Why would a thourough art criticism include a question of "Why this work this way?" while intellectual debate does not?

[lord of the mark]

are you debating the truth of an argument, or its beauty?

"his proof was correct, but inelegant. he could have used fewer steps"

"the lawyers case was sound, but i couldnt listen after he started shouting"

"He may be right, but i cant listen cause his very presence makes my blood boil"

all the above may be factually true, and may be worth saying. But theyre NOT arguments as to the truth of an argument (well except an argument about the aesthetic qualities of an argument)

[lord of the mark]

pragmatist answer

folks who use ad hominems to judge truth, other than in the limited cases mentioned above, tend not to obtain the results they seek.


pseudo Hegelian answer - societies that fail to develop the distinction between ad hominems and valid arguments, fall behind other societies and end up on the dust heap of history.

[Lincoln]

Actually I have learned a great deal from people I was tempted to (and may have) attacked personally. It is kind of like saying that the truth hurts. It is normal to be offended when a cherished logical position is refuted but the wise man gets over it and learns something. I see Speer's point but it is too easy to trash someone's argument because we think he is an evil whatever. If a racist is trying to devise a policy he still may have some important contribution to the discussion which will be missed if he is discarded out of hand. Heck, I even learned something from a liberal once...

[Imran Siddiqui]

$10 says when Albert realizes he's been beat he says this is just a big troll .

[Al B. Sure!]

yeah aint it surprising how long this has lasted?

Mark:

the correctness of an arguement is analogous to the beauty of a work of art. I'm not discussing the beauty of the arguement but its equivalent.

[GePap]

Nothing I ever read in the works of my avatar ever made me think he would think ad homimens would be worthwhile in a debate. Why debate anyone so lowly as to be the target of ad homimems?

[Al B. Sure!]

GePap:

Nietzsche's (and Hume's) 'emotivism', as Whaleboy calls it, would, by extension, cause him to have no problem with ad hominems. Nietzsche's annoyance with the soulless reason of Kant and Schopenhaur and his emphasis on the spirit, the emotions, and the plurality of the soul can allow one to infer that he would argue roughly what i am argueing.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
Agathon:

Bob has some plan to change the education system in a predominately spanish area. Bob is a racist and his education plan is an arguement derived from his racism.

Hitler wants motorways and people's cars.

Hitler is a racist.

Motorways and people's cars therefore are bad.

Napoleon wants a united europe.

Napoleon is French and a tyrant.

A united europe is bad.


Albert Speer wants cornbread.

Albert Speer misunderstood some philosophy.

Cornbread is mighty tasty, especially with a decent tomato sauce, or bean soup.

Shoot. Doesn't always work.

[GePap]

I think that thinking is flawed- you spoke about the art of the debate, the joy of creating. A debate based on illogic is a bastard piece of art, a flawed and weak creation made from fear and weakness. The strong debater can crush his opponent with their wit and arguements, with their charisma and energy. If they need to sink down to personal and irrelevant attacks they are not up to their task- the attack out of their own weakness. They are to be pitied, not seen as an example.

[Al B. Sure!]

Molly Bloom:

there is one big difference between what i described and your examples. The racist's plan concerns the schooling in a mainly minority area so there is a relation and one could realistically infer that the racist's education policy is racially based. Hitler's racism had nothing to do with his building of the autobahn.

i refer to the analogy of art where the emotions are that idea or thing which the painter bases his creation on. the emotions are connected to the created.

GePap:

A debate based on illogic is a bastard piece of art, a flawed and weak creation made from fear and weakness.

Why? Can we assume that our ideas are firstly instinctual; firstly emotional and our reason, our logic, is only the mental justification of our emotions... an attempt to make others be able to understand our emotions? Can this be assumed?

my entire arguement stems from this assumption. If one's ideas are just the mind's pondering over one's pre-disposed emotions, it follows that one's logic position is inter-connected to one's emotions. the two are mutually inclusive and essentially, the same thing.

therefore, finding fault in the logic is tantamount to finding fault in the emotions, right? so why would the inverse not be true? i find fault in your emotional pre-dispositions and defeat your logic position at the root.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Albert Speer

GePap:



Why? Can we assume that our ideas are firstly instinctual; firstly emotional and our reason, our logic, is only the mental justification of our emotions... an attempt to make others be able to understand our emotions? Can this be assumed?

There is a reason why nietzsche sees a need for the slave morality as he calls it- becuase it builds a depth of character, as man strives to enslave and battle himself. Nowhere does Nietzsche then advocate simply unleashed emotions- destruction in the cause of new creation is different from simple destruction.

my entire arguement stems from this assumption. If one's ideas are just the mind's pondering over one's pre-disposed emotions, it follows that one's logic position is inter-connected to one's emotions. the two are mutually inclusive and essentially, the same thing.

You forget to find were adhominems are coming from emotionally. What emotion would rive you to use them? Given that they are logically weak, you generally resort to insults when:
1. You are trying to impress a third party of your superiority
2. Fear the other side.

So you would resort to adhominems simply out of insecurity or fear, which are emotions of weakness, emotions that undermine you.

therefore, finding fault in the logic is tantamount to finding fault in the emotions, right? so why would the inverse not be true? i find fault in your emotional pre-dispositions and defeat your logic position at the root.

An insult i no way finds fault with the toher side- it ascribes a fault based on your emotion, and the hope that the third parties who are present share some notions similar to you.

And No, you conflation of logic and emotion is in the end incorrect as well. We may use logic to justify underlying feelings to ourselves and others, but the tool of logic (for that is what, logic and reason are, tools) is not born of your emotions anymore than any other tool of ours was born from our emotions.

[Ben Kenobi]

So the answer to Albert's question is: Ad hominems are legit in circumstances where we have to make a decision quickly and the only evidence we have is our evidence of a person's credibility or intelligence. In other cases they are lousy argumentative techniques because they don't serve to uncover the evidentiary basis of the beliefs themselves

Surely you can make a proper argument in the time it takes to spew invectives.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Albert Speer
Molly Bloom:

there is one big difference between what i described and your examples. The racist's plan concerns the schooling in a mainly minority area so there is a relation and one could realistically infer that the racist's education policy is racially based. Hitler's racism had nothing to do with his building of the autobahn.

Your racists's education plan is a bit sketchy on details.

We know the primary purpose of the autobahn- the facilitation of military transport.

Where were these military vehicles going to go, and to what end?

By the by- Picasso wasn't solely a Cubist- neither his Blue nor his Rose periods could be accurately described as Cubist, and he also had a 'Surrealist' stage and a neo-Classical phase.

Da Vinci also did a self-portrait.

The Mona Lisa's 'smile' has precious little to do with how well the painting is constructed or painted. You might as well point out she doesn't have eyebrows.

[Whaleboy]

But when critiqueing an artist, don't you also critique the idea or thing that inspired the work as well as the work itself? You critique a Picasso painting on its own grounds AND that which it attempted to represent... why did Picasso choose this idea/thing? was it a good one to choose? did he fulfill the idea's/thing's unconcealment or portrayal that is the work?

Art is a poor analogy since not only does one not critique it in the same manner as a logical position, since art is inherently emotive whereas a reasoned argument is not. Now you can deconstruct it, and then critically analyse that, but there you resort back to the irrelevancy of the person arguing to the argument/conclusion itself. Here's another example. If I am a convicted murderer, arguing an age-old argument, say Descartes "trademark" argument for god. My opponent is an atheist. He may attack me, but what bearing does that have on the argument itself? It's easier of course here because the argument is not one I came up with, merely chose, whereas the issue is clouded when an argument / conclusion is created by the arguer... as far as the debate is concerned, same thing goes. The only difference is in the royalties . I defy you to find a similar example in the Art world, since the example you gave has more in common with a psycho-analysis of the arguer rather than the argument itself. In order to refute me, you need to show why ad hominems affect the argument in question. Without using ad hominems .

the correctness of an arguement is analogous to the beauty of a work of art. I'm not discussing the beauty of the arguement but its equivalent.

Different kettle of fish. Aesthetics isn't related to critical theory in so far as a debate is concerned. Now I could get existentialist on you and say that all is art anyway since the logical merit of any given argument is equally, necessarily and relativistically 0, but that's beside the point, since a debate in this context still refuses to allow ad hominems.

Nietzsche's (and Hume's) 'emotivism', as Whaleboy calls it

Mine is better described by Ayer and Stevenson, or at least based upon that (since they deal with moral prescriptivism whereas I'm taking a wider approach... same logic at work though). Hume, of course, would be woefully dissatisfied at the use of ad hominem to bridge the fact/value distinction .

Nietzsche's annoyance with the soulless reason of Kant and Schopenhaur and his emphasis on the spirit, the emotions, and the plurality of the soul can allow one to infer that he would argue roughly what i am argueing.

Hardly, the phenomologists have a logic of their own that needn't resort to ad hominem. Of course, it's easier with a phenomenologist to analyse their character, Sartre being the best example in my opinion however that does not affect their views one bit. Again you need to show how an attack on a person rationally affects the argument purported.