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

[Richard Hayes]

On Jul 30, 2009, at 6:43 PM, Curt Steinmetz wrote:

> Just for the record, Richard conflated (or at least combined) three
> separate charges:
>
> (1) that my brief overview of Harris near complete lack of scientific
> backing was "irrelevant".
> (2) that in doing so I had "weakened" my "case".
> (3) and that this amounted to an "ad hominem" attack.

I don't think I conflated those charges. I thought I had made them  
separately.

> I also believe that he also meant, as so many people do these days, to
> mean not just the literal, original definition of "ad hominem" but the
> erroneous connotation that "ad hominem" is in and of itself a "logical
> fallacy".

Ad hominem argumentation is considered fallacious. It is classed as an  
informal fallacy. All that means is that it does not constitute good  
reasoning.

> If all he meant to say was that I was arguing in the style that  
> Socrates
> invariably used whenever he discussed philosophy, then he certainly
> failed to communicate that with any clarity.

If I had meant to say that you argue like Socrates, I would have said  
so clearly. I am quite familiar with Socrates. And you, Curt, are no  
Socrates.

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes
rhayes at unm.edu