Is attacking definitions not allowed in PPR?

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attacking an opinion, belief, or philosophy held by someone can often be interpreted as insinuated ridicule of the belief-holder.

when i state that homeopathic remedies contain no active ingredient and don't actually do anything, people who believe otherwise and use such remedies feel insulted (and rightly so).

as i'm sure you're aware, this subforum is a collection of topics that are, at least by those willing to discuss them, important and worthy of passionate discourse. if you see or suspect some form of harassment, by all means speak up. editing out specific undesirable statements (like calling someone a blockhead) is a bit silly when you're doing so in an environment of implicit negative insinuations.

on a completely related note: do you keep a list of posts you edit?

^^^^

Yes actually I do know that. He first mentioned it around one of my posts in AG's thread where I made the arguments for God's existence. This was months ago.

As to your support of his claims about my definitions. Well you can think that. Do you care to tell me why you think his point is right and why mine is wrong? So far people have simply asserted the wrongness of my statement. Ruveyn made an appeal to authority.

I personally think the issue comes from the different interpretive basis Orwell and I use. He grounds a good deal of what he says in his mathematical background whereas I come from a humanities background (and never should two meet). Hence I find him legalistic and pedantic and he finds me nondescript. Both views are interesting though. However Orwell assumes that I must somehow conform all I say to his definitions.

Citing a textbook (especially 3 different textbooks) to obtain the definition of a term is completely valid. It is not an appeal to authority fallacy.


I'm a history major, btw. I have a decent humanities background. It's not as though I am stuck in one mode of thinking and only understand one very narrow field, but my education has been rather eclectic.


Well... no. I find your arguments somewhere between imprecise and simply wrong. A few of them end up being insane (especially when you try to cite sources).


No. I do assume that anyone attempting to make an explicitly logical argument must actually play by the rules of logic, and that anyone attempting to refute such an argument must understand the rules in order to know what to criticize.

Appealing to a legitimate authority on a matter of fact or principle is NOT an argument to authority (argumentum a vericundium). For example quoting a vetted scientific paper on a matter of fact or principle is the normal procedure in science. Ditto in math, ditto in logic. There are experts in various fields that are perfectly to quote or refer to. Why? Because they know their sh*t, that's why.

The definitions referred to are in standard use in academic circles. You are perfectly free to redefine terms as you see fit but you should note that the definitions you substitute are not in common use, so that people who read your stuff will not be misled.

The three textbooks I referred to have been used for teaching logic in American universities for over 20 years. One of the them is Copi-Cohen, well know authors. The second is David Kelley's book on logic. and the third is the Power of Logic which has been in classroom use since the mid 1980's. They all agree on terminology and the terminology is pretty well standard.

ruveyn

I say again - we must allow some leeway for inadequate typists.

And for furriners whatt dem no talk so goot as uss.

I would only find something like that offensive if it had also been said that people who use homeopathic remedies are stupid.


I would need an example to know what you mean there.


Using your homeopathic remedies example here, and as already said, I do not see any implicit negative insinuation there, but even a casual or offhanded "blockhead" comment related to something like is a personal attack ... and the point there is simply this: Other people do not need you or me to tell them what to think of someone else. I happen to occasionally embrace homeopathic remedies, but I do not need to call you a blockhead in front of other people so I can feel better about or more secure in my doing that.


If I understand what you are asking here, no, I do not keep a record of brief things edited out of posts. For example, and simply from memory here, I recall removing "mad, bad or stupid" from somewhere earlier today, and I see no reason for either the OP or me to need me to keep an actual record of that. But if I happened to see a situation where removing a personal attack would also destroy the remainder of an otherwise legitimate sentence, paragraph or post, I would likely keep a record of that somewhere so the member would not have to try to recall everything else and re-post, sans attack.

"when i state that homeopathic remedies contain no active ingredient and don't actually do anything, people who believe otherwise and use such remedies feel insulted (and rightly so). "

I do not feel insulted at all.

If I were asked I might say it is perfectly correct that they contain no detectable active incredient.

I will even agree that no research done - there has been shamefully little - has come up with a consistent and useful answer to the question of why they work.

I might assure you that they do do something, and even give you facts, but why should I make a hole in the door of your mind>

The only thing mildly insulting there is that "rightly so" which implies that the person addresse is benighted enough to use remedies he belives are useless.

It is no insult to me that you are ill informed, or that informed you might choose to remain ill.

Oh yeah? What do you define as "legitimate"? BAM! Try to ride that philosophical shitstorm out biaattch.

Seriously though, I agree that they both aren't the same thing. People who dedicate a big portion of their life to what they study are more reliable than the layman in terms of knowledge, experience, and the fact that it pertains more to their life in general. It gets a lot less cut and dried when it comes to politics cuz there's incentives for agendas and special interests. But yeah generally they are more reliable when it comes to philosophy.

That's a two way street, so don't project it onto one side. Plus I'm an atheist and I believe empathy is intrinsic to social beings, so don't assume atheists must also be moral relativists. Yes I know there was a wink but IIRC you put religious morality on a pedestal.

Uh, and while understanding we are dealing with mere examples here, has not the "rightly so" just been turned around into at least mildly hostile innuendo? A given opinion does not prove someone ill-informed, and no evidence has yet shown willing illness.

Only definitions as defined by the left, with proper quantities of political correctness and caricaturization of opposition may be considered acceptable. All other varieties of definition are guilty of the capital crime of not adhering with the proper social agendas and must therefore undergo the capital punishment of virtually eternal damnation.

Yes, that does often seem to be part of the core dogma here, eh?!

While there is certainly no core dogma, the terms of service of this forum are quite polarized towards the left. That doesn't affect individual utterances, but rather that seems to be part of the corrupted human nature.

@Ruveyn

Appealing to a legitimate authority on a matter of fact or principle is NOT an argument to authority (argumentum a vericundium). For example quoting a vetted scientific paper on a matter of fact or principle is the normal procedure in science. Ditto in math, ditto in logic. There are experts in various fields that are perfectly to quote or refer to. Why? Because they know their sh*t, that's why.

Response

I do not have a problem with this. I called it an appeal to authority because I was defining an exception. You cited a statement, not anything about exceptions. You are implicitly assuming through your statement, that there are no circumstances where statement can be labeled with two different terms with Aristotleian Logic.

Regardless of actual underlying intent here, on which I cannot be clear and confident,

an ACCEPTABLE answer?

The question as I recall it was basically "how can this be?"

So I say "As i see it this is how it can be."

HOW can that answer not be acceptable - unless you know the person is lying?.

We were not asked to CONVINCE anybody that God loves - just to explain how we feel it happens.

If Brother binary had sked for a CONVINCING explanation, I for one would have kept my mouth shut..

Either the rules sare being changed in mid stream, or the original question was poorly framed. Yet the opening post here suggests he IS asking for info. Which I at least honestly sought to provide.

The only un-written rule in PPR is that a few people think this set of boards is their own personal playground, atheist or religious. An un-written rule in most any places or situation is: if you don't MEAN to attack, and really mean only to challenge, you really have to take a lot of care in how you ask or how you state. If you MEAN to attack, then just do it and don't worry about it. If you don't mean to attack, many posters will already know that, based on the choice of words and phrasing. Some will take offense no matter how you say something. But if you DO mean attack, people may respond in kind. :shrugs her shoulders: The offense taken may lie in: what you said, or how you said it, and sometimes not either, but just that you meant to offend.
I don't say "you" as in you, in particular, I mean "you" just people in general.
Naturally boards that offer space for discussions on politics, philosophy, and religion will be hot, cold, ferocious, full of teeth and heels and elbows, dirty looks, nasty glares, throwing of heavy objects, punches to the head and groin, insults, injury. It's a war zone. Visit sometimes the In-Depth Life discussions, or Social Skills, they're crammed full of hugs. When someone gets injured in there, it's always an injury that took place before they got on the boards that evening.

If I understand him correctly, which I do not assert with maximum force, the statement ["when i state that homeopathic remedies contain no active ingredient and don't actually do anything, people who believe otherwise and use such remedies feel insulted (and rightly so). clearly states that - in his opinion - such people are right to feel insulted when that is asserted.

As one who has used and benefited from homeopathic remedies and [while agreeing subject to consensus on the definition of "active ingredient" with that part of the proposition] has good evidence that the remedies have an action, I am in a position to assert that I am not so insulted by that opinion.

If someone said that I OUGHT to be insulted, I would at least raise eyebrows, and would be inclined to notify such a one that he speaks from ignorance.

I will concede that it might have been desirable to couch that line without the 2nd person pronoun, in case he is not stating his opinion about those who use homeopathy. But I THINK he is in fact doing a putdown.

I on the other hand simply state he is ignorant. Which he is. So am I . He is ignorant at least of my reasons for crediting homeopathy with certain positive effects . He must be - i have not pronounced them.

I am ignorant of very many things, and freely admit it.

It is actually not shameful to be ignorant, nor an insult to point it out.