Thursday, February 08, 2007

A humble suggestion

Prompted by another headsup post (this one on faulty reasoning):

I think we should just start saying "petitio principi" instead of "begging the question". It's a crappy translation, no one who's never studied logic can guess what it means - due to the huge number of English phrases with "beg" in them that do mean what people think they mean - and we seem happy to use (as headsup does just in this one post) argumentum ad hominema, tu quoqueb, non sequiturc, argumentum ad misericordiamd, and post hoc, ergo propter hoce. So it's not the Latin scaring us off!

Just my little suggestion to help end some confusion.

(a - "your position on Iraq is wrong because you're ugly I don't agree with your position because you just hate America."; b - "you can't tell me not to smoke because you do it too!"; c - "the sky is blue because there's cheese"; d - "you shouldn't give me a ticket because I am going to the hospital to visit my sick mother"; e - "since the sun always rises after a rooster crows, a rooster's crowing makes the sun rise")

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Post's permalink - posted at 8:28 PM  

8 Comments:

At 9:54 PM, February 08, 2007 Blogger superstar had this to say...

life just good

 
At 10:53 AM, February 09, 2007 Blogger fev had this to say...

Hi, Ridger: Tnx for linking into the archives there (and you kids, _turn your baseball caps around right now_ before you _destroy another verb form_).

I'm still of two minds on the question-begging thing; I appreciate your point, but we all have our favorite bits of prescriptive dogma to cherish.

Maybe we'll revisit that next semester. I'll sound out some opinions over this way and see if we can get a discussion going.

cheers,
fev

 
At 12:41 PM, February 09, 2007 Anonymous Anonymous had this to say...

interesting. the roots of words are fascinating stories in and of themselves. i'll try the petitio principi next time i'm chilling with linguists :)

 
At 5:43 PM, February 11, 2007 Blogger Doctor Biobrain had this to say...

Not to nitpick, but I don't like your ad hominem example. Not that there's anything wrong with it, per se. But only because it came from you.

But seriously, too often people think ad hominem simply refers to basic insults, when that's not quite it. It's more like what conservatives do when they dismiss an argument by pointing out that it came from a biased source. If they can label someone a liberal, terrorist-sympathizer, or disgruntled ex-Republican, they believe they don't need to address anything those people say. And for the most part it works and the media eats it up. And so the only anti-Bush criticism the media accepts has to come from conservative war veterans with sterling reputations; and even they will eventually be smeared as unacceptable (eg, Murtha and Webb). So it's not that they're insulting the sources, but merely that they're dismissing them as biased and therefore unreliable. And that's more to the heart of the ad hominem.

And so while your example wasn't too bad, it still leaves open the idea that it refers solely to basic insults (ie, "you're ugly"). And I hate that, when I insult the person I'm arguing against and they insist I'm using ad hominem attacks. Because my arguments are always solid, with the insults thrown in for fun. And anyone who can't see that is a dumbshit who should always be ignored.

 
At 9:23 PM, February 11, 2007 Blogger The Ridger, FCD had this to say...

You're right, and I shall change my example - I'll steal yours. Thanks!

 
At 4:17 PM, February 12, 2007 Blogger Barry Leiba had this to say...

The change is groovy, as long as we remember the difference between...

«You're ugly, therefore your position is wrong,» or, alternatively, «You're ugly, therefore I don't need to consider your position further,» which are ad hominem arguments, albeit juvenile ones, and...

«You're ugly, and your position of wrong because [clear, solid discussion],» which, as Dr B points out, is not.

That is, the point isn't whether we used insults, but whether we used insults or other irrelevant aspects of the arguer as a means to refute the argument.

 
At 8:52 PM, February 12, 2007 Blogger The Ridger, FCD had this to say...

Yes, indeed: the ad hominem fallacy is that the insult is all that's needed to refute the argument. Insults plus refutation are very different - as Dr Biobrain well knows :-)

 
At 12:29 PM, February 14, 2007 Blogger Fran / Blue Gal had this to say...

On a similar note, I think we should stop saying MSM, and start saying COM for "Corporate-Owned Media".

 

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