> > There are some valid arguments about a person's credibility that > > should not be confused with ad hominem, like when a person lies or > > contradicts earlier statements. I think you have damaged your > > credibility with many of the things you said, ways you've contradicted > > yourself. > > A lie is a deliberate fabrication.
Unless a person admits to lying or gets caught in the lie, it's often a judgment call. Suffice it to say that I don't have proof you have lied, but it is my judgment that you have lied, or at least been very intellectually dishonest. For example, the way you implied that some definitions of "subjective" and "objective" were invalid in a discussion we had, then you come back weeks later using the words in exactly those ways. You seem to be rationalizing your behavior by saying that the words should have meant one thing in that context, and this separate conversation is a different context. It seems to demonstrate more about your fickle behavior and your willingness to rationalize any of your own actions, less about the actual meanings of those words, or any point that we were trying to discuss. > > But it's not like I've said, "Joe is wrong about linguistic theory > > because he's a darn Catholic, and Catholics should not be trusted!" or > > "Joe is wrong about philosophy because he is from the East Coast, and > > New Englanders should not be trusted." > > Those would not even be plausible, really. Poor examples of ad > hominem. I would know you were joking. No, those are strict examples of ad hominem, because they are irrelevent. Here are some examples of ad hominem listed on Wikipedia which also use irrelevant premises: "You can't believe Jack when he says there is a God because he doesn't even have a job." "Charles Manson wrote this song, so it must be unlistenable". That's one way that some ad hominem attacks are logical fallacies, because they are irrelevant to the actual topic. They imply that a person lacks credibility without proving it. It's not the same as arguing against a person's credibility with premises that actually support it. When I have brought up your credibility, I haven't used it to conclude that you're always wrong or always lying. Bringing up instances in the past when you've been hypocritical or contradicted yourself shows a likelihood you may be hypocritical or contradict yourself again. Not 100% certainty that you're always going to contradict yourself. > Now, below: THIS is an ad hominem attack! > > > I might say something like: Joe has said that "appeals to authority" > > are not logical fallacies. Anyone learning the basics of logic and the > > common appeals to emotion will hear that appeal to authority is a > > logical fallacy. Therefore Joe has demonstrated a poor understanding > > of logic and logical fallacies. Therefore his opinion on what > > constitutes "ad hominem" or other logical fallacies is probably based > > on an equally poor understanding. 1. You are wrong when you deny that "appeals to authority" are logical fallacies. 2. That instance of being wrong about a logical fallacy is an indication that you have not learned the basics of logic. 3. You express an opinion about what constitutes an ad hominem attack, which is another kind of logical fallacy. Conclusion: Your knowledge of this kind of logical fallacy may be lacking, since you have been clearly wrong about another kind of logical fallacy. Note that the conclusion is "Joe is always wrong". In the original way I wrote it which you quote it, I even hedged and said that your opinion on ad hominem is *probably* based on an equally poor understanding. I didn't even firmly say that you must be wrong about this thing, because you were wrong earlier. However, it's a valid argument against your credibility. The problem with ad hominems is that they usually rely on an unstated and incorrect extra premise. For example, "Charles Manson wrote this song, so it must be unlistenable" could be spelled out as: 1. Charles Manson wrote this song. (We assume everyone knows that Manson is a murderer.) 2. Unstated premise: no murderer can write a good song. Conclusion: the song must be unlistenable. Where is the hidden or unstated premise in my argument that you quoted above? You might disagree with a premise, when I claimed you are wrong about appeals to authority being logical fallacy. That wouldn't make the argument invalid or ad hominem. It would be a valid argument with an untrue premise. > > That's a discussion of your credibility, and it's not exactly > > addressing the specific question of what an ad hominem is (I did that > > earlier). But it's not a logical fallacy just because I bring up your > > credibility. > > on the contrary, you have given a textbook example of the fallacy of > ad hominem. You have stated outright that > > 1. I am wrong about x, and > > 2. therefore, I am likely to be wrong about y. 1. X and Y are part of the same topic (logical fallacies, the basics of logic). 2. You were wrong about X. 3. That demonstrates your poor understanding of the basics of logic. Therefore you are likely to be wrong about Y. If you think 3+3=5, you've demonstrated that your math skills are lacking. It's reasonable to expect that you might be wrong about subtraction or division or multiplication, since these are all different kinds of math skills. And not every argument about a person's credibility is an ad hominem attack, especially when the argument is valid. > In order to find out why this is so, we need to examine why appeal to > authority might be a logical fallacy in the first place. Wikipedia > has an article, but it is woefully inadequate, even according to > Wikipedia itself. As usual when arguing about the validity of Wikipedia, I invite you to register with that site and correct the entry if you feel it is wrong. There's nothing stopping you. > Nonetheless, we can at least start here: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority > > " > The fact that an argument is an appeal to authority does not make its > conclusion untrue, nor does it make it unreasonable to believe the > argument. An appeal to authority cannot guarantee the truth of the > conclusion (see Truth and Consensus theory of truth), because the fact > that an authority says something does not make it so. Ideally, > propositions being true (or having arguments supporting them) is what > makes authorities believe them to be true, not the other way around. > An appeal to authority thus confuses cause and effect. Furthermore, > notice that a rigorous concept of truth is a complex subject. > " > > Somebody really should cleanup that Wiki article! The above given > reason is not why, in general, appeals to authority are fallacies. > Nonetheless, it is a point worth considering. > > "An appeal to authority cannot guarantee the truth of the conclusion > (see Truth and Consensus theory of truth), BECAUSE THE FACT THAT AN > AUTHORITY SAYS SOMETHING DOES NOT MAKE IT SO. Ideally, propositions > being true (or having arguments supporting them) is what makes > authorities believe them to be true, not the other way around. An > appeal to authority thus confuses cause and effect." (emphasis added) > > Now actually, that is a fallacy, it is just not the appeal to > authority fallacy, it is the cart-before-the-horse fallacy. Confusing > cause and effect is putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. > Confusing cause and effect, and appealing to an authority, are two > different things; they may be accidentally related, as in the above > example, but intrinsically they are not. To me, it sounds like you use the word "authority" only to indicate people you have decided are correct. Therefore any argument refering to that authority must be correct by definition of the word "authority." I don't think that's what people mean when they talk about "appeals to authority". Maybe they should call it "appeals to so- called authority". That's the whole question. When a person refers to some authority, then we always have to go back and forth about whether the person really knows anything or just calls himself an authority, or has suckered a bunch of people into believing he's an authority. When making an argument to a person who doesn't know this authority, it's only complicates the discussion, because now you have to prove whether the person is really an authority, and even when you do, you haven't proven that his authority on this topic makes him correct. Maybe the even more basic problem is that among rational people with a realistic view of the world, humans are always fallible, so there's no human authority we can site who can be assumed to always be right. It's always better to support a conclusion directly than to defer to some authority, who is after all, only human. But among theists and non-rational people and those with fantastical, faith-based views of the world, some humans can be infallible, so their judgment on certain topics can be trusted with 100% certainty. Obviously you and I will disagree on this. This shows pretty clearly that you're more concerned about keeping the faith and adhering to some traditions you've learned than logic. I don't know if these common logical fallacies are taught in any grade schools, maybe it's more of a middle or high school level topic, but there's a pretty solid consensus. I hate to imply truth is a popularity contest, but I think even a lot of Catholics would tell you that it's a known, obvious fact that an appeal to authority is a logical fallacy. > "There are two basic forms of appeal to authority, based on the > authority being trusted. The more relevant the expertise of an > authority, the more compelling the argument. Nonetheless, authority is > never absolute, so all appeals to authority which assert that the > authority is necessarily infallible are fallacious." That last sentence above seems to contradict the teachings of the Catholic Church, from what I've read about it and what you've written about it. > The second form, citing a person who is actually an authority in the > relevant field, carries more subjective, cognitive weight. A person > who is recognized as an expert authority often has greater experience > and knowledge of their field than the average person, so their opinion > is more likely than average to be correct. In practical subjects such > as car repair, an experienced mechanic who knows how to fix a certain > car will be trusted to a greater degree than someone who is not an > expert in car repair. There are many cases where one must rely on an > expert, and cannot be reasonably expected to have the same experience, > knowledge and skill that that person has. Many trust a surgeon without > ever needing to know all the details about surgery themselves. > Nevertheless, experts can still be mistaken and their expertise does > not always guarantee that their arguments are valid." > > Now let us consider the debate between Brock and myself in the light > of the foregoing. Which form of appeal to authority would this be? > That is the first question. If it were the first type, then we would > be being a little silly believing anything the Bible has to say, or > the Saints, or any religious authority at all. But there is the fact > of the Communion of Saints, i.e. men and women who made it their > life's work to please God. The "fact of the Communion of Saints" is an unsupported assertion. We have written accounts about the lives of some humans, not evidence or logical arguments supporting their miracles. > Some of these are the human instruments > God used to author Holy Scripture. Another unsupported assertion. > Assuming no more than that human > spirituality is a field of possible expertise every bit as much as > plumbing, or medicine, or poker playing is, it seems on the face of it > that this appeal to the authority of the Saints in matters of > spirituality is of the second type, the type that carries some > argumentative weight. Multiple unsupported assertions will not hold up much argumentative weight. > But now it is time to expose the heart of the matter. Recall: > > "Given that no authority is absolute, it follows that any appeal to > authority which is based on the infallibility of the authority is > fallacious." > > Brock and I are Christians. We have that in common, and thus we have > something else in common as well. Neither of us accepts as given that > "no authority is absolute." Rather, each of us accepts that God's > authority is absolute. The hidden premise here is that, even if there exists a God whose authority is absolute, His wishes have been communicated to us. Every time you try to state what God wants, what God has communicated, you are refering to something mediated by human beings. You are glossing over the possibility that any or all of these human beings acting on behalf of God were telling the truth, that none of them were lying or mistaken about being inspired by God. Seems like a detail worth considering. >" An (fallacious) appeal to authority argument has the basic form: > > 1. A makes claim B; > 2. there is something positive about A, > 3. therefore claim B is true. > " > > And now we can see why there are special cases where the fallacious > nature of the appeal to authority fallacy would not apply. 2 says, > there is "something positive" about A. Appeal to an authority on this > basis is the fallacy, properly so-called. But between Brock and > myself, we do not believe the authority of Holy Scripture because > there is merely "something positive" about it: we believe it, because > it is infallible. So the Christian appeal to [some] valid authorities would go: 1. A makes claim B. 2. A is infallible. 3. Therefore claim B is true. And A would represent God or some of his spokespeople. That holds together as a valid argument, but the conclusion fails if one of the premises fails. (Since one of the premises fails.) Here's a more realistic breakdown of the whole thing. 1. Claim B is attributed to God by human A. 2. God is described by human A as infallible. 3. Human A is infallible since he's just passing along God's infallible message. 4. We can trust that Human A conveys God's word infallibly because Human A and his public relations folks tells us so. 5. God really exists. 6. Therefore Claim B is true. Out of those five premises, the first one sounds plausible. I can see your line of thinking, but it doesn't prove that any actual authority is infallible, only that you assert and believe some people are infallible. You'd have to prove that premise more solidly in order for rational people to stop correctly teaching "appeal to authority" as a logical fallacy. > Therefore, it is not true that "authority is never absolute." God's > Authority is, in fact, absolute. Following, it is neither true that > "all appeals to authority which assert that the authority is > necessarily infallible are fallacious." This relies on the hidden > premise that "no authority is necessarily infallible." That's not a hidden premise, it's just the same statement phrased differently. > That may be your belief, and it is no doubt the belief of many > persons. But it is not an axiom of thought, nor is it an established > and accepted principle. Again, I hate to imply that the truth is a popularity contest, but among people who value logic, it is an established and accepted principle that no authority, no human being, is necessarily infallible. Among people who rely on feelings and faith and wishful thinking, there is no principle of logic that can't be tossed aside if it gets in the way of good feelings and faith. > Now it may, in the past, have been problematic for some to determine > just what it is God has said. But fortunately, at least as far as > Brock and I are concerned, God has caused infallible truth to be > written in books, specifically the books that comprise His Holy > Scripture. Melinda has been buying and reading lots of Bibles lately. Maybe I'll get an inventory of them sometime, at least ten to twenty of them now, different translations, including apocrypha, excluding apocrypha, two or three whole books of apocryphal and agnostic and mystical gospels. She's got Mary Baker Eddy's Christian science text, she's got a couple of Qur'ans, a book of Mormon. Anyway, I don't mean to ramble about my wife's latest fad, but the point it gets to is WHICH scripture? There must be hundreds of different translations, some with sections rejected or devalued by one denomination, embraced as the word of God by another denomination. And you can pretend there are no substantial differences between the different translations, or between Bibles where a whole section is left out, but it's pretty obvious. Oh well. More to the point, do you and Brock even agree on one particular edition of the Bible that is valid? Is there one edition that you feel is better or that Brock feels is better? And if there's no substantial difference between the editions or translations, why would you feel that one of them is better or worse? > 1. A makes claim B; > 2. A is infallible, > 3. therefore claim B is true. > > And as anyone can see, that logic is now airtight: no more fallacy. In researching how to describe why you are wrong, I've found some helpful terminology. Arguments can be valid even when their premises are not true. Good ol' wikipedia uses "sound" to describe a valid argument that also has true premises. In this case, I would say that you have a valid but unsound argument, since it is not proven that God is infallible. (Start by proving God exists, then you can work up to proving He's infallible.) There's no reason for you to take it as given God is infallible, or his reps on Earth are intermittently infallible. There's no reason for anyone to believe it, but reason hardly enters into it. You want to believe it, so you call it a matter of volition and forget or deny that this belief is based on feelings. > You might wish to argue that God either does not exist or is not > infallible, but that would be another argument, not the one between me > and Brock. You and Brock may accept untrue premises and unsound arguments that there exists some infallible authorities. That doesn't negate the accepted and established principle that appeals to authority are a common type of logical fallacy. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "A Civil Religious Debate" group. 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