Jim wrote:
> Then do so: in what way was my argument "deceitful"?
> If you're going to make things personal, with charges
> of "sophistry" and the like, you _should_ be willing
> to back them up.
Sure. No problem.
Neither raghu, nor the Sandwichman, nor I claimed that the positive
significance, importance, or influence on the workers' struggle of
Obama's words would be earth shattering. We simply noted or implied
that the event was positive and significant. I even made an ironic
remark about it, since the fact that Obama's words were guarded didn't
surprise me a bit. Actually, my surprise was in the other direction,
that he make a statement that -- amplified by the press -- can only
stimulate further direct actions by workers.
So, it is a profoundly deceitful argument, legal sophistry, to imply
that Obama's words were unimportant to the workers' struggle,
*because* "he didn't sign any contract." The words (or silence) by a
president elect, to have an impact on the workers' struggle, don't
have to be part of a duly executed covenant.
It is deceitful argument, legal sophistry, to say that, to exert a
material influence on the workers' struggle, "Obama's words have to be
an official policy that's transmitted to the government bureaucracy
(which has to be convinced to go along)." No, they don't have to be
an official policy transmitted blah blah blah. If they do, then the
effect can be larger. But there are alternative mechanisms that can
have significant consequences as well.
Moreover, the analogy of a person yelling fire in a crowded theater,
clearly intended as a subterfuge, could actually be used to refute
your claim that Obama's words will make no difference ("what matters
is what he does"). Why to refute your claim? Because the current
state of the economy can turn any word of encouragement of the
workers' direct actions by the president elect into a very meaningful
event. So, you're trying to show that Obama's words are not important
and allude to an analogy that shows that context may make them highly
consequential.
And this leads me to why I affirm that the analogy was clearly
intended as a subterfuge, aimed to muddle the issues. It was because,
a person yelling fire in a crowded theater is to cause social harm,
whereas Obama's defending the workers (regardless of his true
intentions) leads to direct social good.
It is trickery, sophistry to imply that attributing to Obama's words
political significance is akin to attributing to Obama miraculous
powers. It's -- you wrote -- as if Obama could just say "let the air
and water be clean" to have air and water cleaned at once. Something
that, if my memory serves, you followed with a stern admonition not to
ignore the context in which words are spoken.
I'm not a positivist or nihilist in cognitive matters. Where it
counts, in historical practice, inference has contributed grandly to
the growth of human knowledge. So, I'm not shy about drawing
conclusions on the basis of induction. If it walks like a duck and
talks like a duck, chances are it's a duck.
But isn't intention subjective and, hence, directly unobservable?
Certainly. But not all that exists is directly observable. Our
senses have limits that our minds can (partly at least) make up for.
That intention is *directly* unobservable doesn't mean that intention
is unobservable toto. There is no form without content nor effect
without cause.
If my proof of your intention to deceive is implausible, I'll let that
decision to the readers.
> I don't see how one can separate my "mode of arguing" from
> me in this case. After all, if my statement was indeed
> deceitful (i.e., dishonest), that says that I am the type
> of person who uses deceitful argumentation.
Can we separate what we do from who we are? Sure. That's what we
have our powers of abstraction for to separate things that, in the
flow of life, appear mingled. Can we keep on making deceitful
arguments over and over again without turning ourselves into deceiftul
people? Quantity turns into quality. To paraphrase Aristotle, at
some point what we do becomes who we are. (And I pause here to take
my part of this as well.)
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