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From: tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Ad Hominem arguments
Message-ID: <2431@sjuvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-Oct-85 08:04:30 EST
Article-I.D.: sjuvax.2431
Posted: Tue Oct 22 08:04:30 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Oct-85 03:31:51 EST
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Organization: St. Joseph's University, Phila. PA.
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[]
     Recently, Rich Rosen made the following remark, in defense of his
penchant for ad hominem argumentation:

Allow to explain something here.  When all you have to support your assertions
is your "I say so, these are my values, these are my beliefs, how DARE you
question them?", and when beliefs founded only on such assertions become
the status quo in a society and impinge upon the lives of human beings, then
those who would not have such beliefs be the controlling force in their lives
have a right to ask why those beliefs are held, to question the assumptions
that go behind them, to ask what (even subconscious) motives one might have
for holding such beliefs given those assumptions. [Rosen]

     If a person makes a claim, in the course of a philosophical
discussion, it is indeed appropriate to ask that person what evidence
there is for it.  If the person can muster no evidence, it is indeed
appropriate to point that out.  These practices are appropriate
because they are conducive to understanding and, in the long run (one
hopes) truth.

     One has the *right*, I suppose, to ask anything else one pleases.
But certain questions and comments are logically incapable of
clarifying, confirming, or disconfirming the claims under discussion;
they can only make the philosophical atmosphere more threatening by
making the participants more defensive and acrimonious.  I am
referring, of course, to ad hominem arguments.

     The motives one has for believing anything are strictly
irrelevant to the truth or falsity of that belief, because these are
the *causes* of the belief, not the *reasons* for it.  To "ask why
those beliefs are held" ought to be -- in the context of philosophy --
to ask for reasons.  To seek, or impute, causes is psychoanalysis.
While one has a right to practice this, it is both irrelevant and
counterproductive in philosophy.  It is irrelevant, for reasons
adumbrated in the paragraph before this one.  It is counterproductive,
because it tends to turn argumentation into symbolic violence.  While
some symbolic violence may be unavoidable in philosophy, it seems to
me that it is best to minimize it.


Todd Moody                 |  {allegra|astrovax|bpa|burdvax}!sjuvax!tmoody
Philosophy Department      |
St. Joseph's U.            |         "I couldn't fail to
Philadelphia, PA   19131   |          disagree with you less."