[Buddha-l] Prominent Neobuddhist proposes religion based blacklisting for government jobs

[Alberto Todeschini]

Hi Andy,

Thank you for your thoughts.
>>> Copi's treatment is now obsolete.
>> Somebody should communicate that to the people who write college
>> textbooks on reasoning and critical thinking. In all the texts I have
>> used to teach that subject in recent years, argumentum ad hominem is
>> still listed among the informal fallacies, with warnings that using it
>> weakens one's overall argument.
>  
> I, for one, find the ad hominem against Copi unconvincing! 

My statement above isn't an argument. Hence, it is a category mistake to
say that it is an ad hominem. And even if it were an argument, it
wouldn't be an ad hominem.

Here's how I see it: there is an homogeneous enough view on fallacies
that it is frequently called something like 'standard treatment/view'.
Such view has been called into question. I've read many standard
treatments (including Copi's) as well as several of the recent
critiques. I've drawn my provisional conclusion: the standard view is in
many respects problematic and needs correction. OK, I grant you that my
original 'obsolete' may be too strong. Let's say 'problematic enough to
require substantial revision'.

Once again, I offer to supply references to some of these critiques
(off-list) so that you don't have to take my word for it.

If there's one thing to learn from the history of science is that there
are periods during which in a given field the view still held by the
majority has already been shown to be false by a minority. And so, even
if it is true (and I'm not sure about this, I have no data) that the
majority of specialists believe that something like the standard
treatment is fine, that doesn't mean that it is.

> The ad hominem (and, to correct Joanna's Latin, the ad feminam) is an 
> _informal_ fallacy. 

Here is where we disagree. The ad hominem is a type of argument that
*can* be and indeed frequently is fallacious but is not so intrinsically.

> Thus it is not always a fallacy, but for the most part 
> it is.

First you define it as a fallacy, then you say that it isn't always so.

How about we just don't define it as a fallacy to start with? Let's just
say that it is a type of argument which is regularly abused. So there
are fallacious ad hominems and non-fallacious ad hominems.

> What we are dealing with here is not an ad hominem, but a reverse ad 
> verecundiam!

I'm sure you are right. When there is high traffic on Buddha-L I don't
read every message carefully. But my point was different. I never said
anything about the specific case of Curt's message.
 	
Best,

Alberto Todeschini