Actually, according to my Philosophy/Logics prof at UGA, attacking someone does invalidate the argument. Any time there is a personal attack of any kind, it shows an inability or lack of willingness to debate the "facts" in evidence. Hence, attacking someone says "I am not going to play fair and work with logic."
Brenda Hart Neihouse -----Original Message----- From: felmon davis [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Felmon Davis Sent: Wednesday, January 08, 2014 1:04 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Being Good, was: RE: Reading and Exporting spreadsheets--another commentary On Tue, 7 Jan 2014, Think wrote: > And again, we have the concept of "ad hominem." Attacking me voids > your argument. This is not about me. This is about the behavior of > those who post on this listserv. minor correction: attacking a person does not void an argument. suppose I say, "p implies q, q implies r, therefore p implies r, you fool!" the argument is valid (not 'void') but I have also attacked a person. an 'ad hominem argument' is the fallacy of attempting to invalidate a position because of some feature of the person holding the argument, "ah, you only say that because you're a republican!" is an ad hominem fallacy. impoliteness does not 'void' arguments. F. -- Felmon Davis I've enjoyed just about as much of this as I can stand. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
