ad hominem (III)
I would like to take up my essay at the point of the concept of "what is doing the work". It is a fairly common logical fallacy to mis-identify what is the fulcrum on which an argument or idea really turns. This is especially a problem in dealing with evidence in endevours such as Philosophy of Science. You can put all the facts in logical notation to avoid confusion and still not help yourself.
I am going to work with Nelson Goodman's intuition pump statement "all crows are black", as i plan to use that later in the argument anyway.
The statement i am going to use right now is "all crows viewed in pitch dark appear black". Translated into logical notation this would read ...
A(x) (Cx & Dx) => Bx ... {For all objects 'x', if x is a crow and x is seen in dark places then x will appear black}.
[Actually that would say they "are" black rather than "appear", but i'm concerned with the front end and am hoping to avoid a confusing looking notation].
What is important here is the conjunction of Cx and Dx in front of the conditional statement. The Cx has tied itself into the logical notation as part of a conjunction ... making it necessary for the truth value of the statement to come out true.
But we know, physically, that this is a misnomer. ANY object viewed in pitch dark will appear black, whether it be a black raven, a red ball or a yellow banana.
That is where we would chime in with "what is doing the work here". The statement is not about ravens at all. What is doing the work here is the fact that the object is being viewed in the dark. The mention of raven at all is a red herring (i think that is the proper use of that term).
In the real world of debate, about things in the real world, i have found this notion to be greatly undervalued.
It will tie into my argument in two places. The first is in the notion of ad hominem argumentation itself. What is doing the work in an ad hominem attack or fallacy is the rhetoric, not the argument (see last post for more on the ad hominem argumentation form). The second place this notion will appear will be buttressing the distinction between direct and indirect violation of the ad hominem form ... that is ... the claim will be that a certain view of debate may render ALL debate to be of an ad hominem nature, and therefore some claims that one is indirectly doing the same thing the target of the debate was indirectly doing will be claimed to be true, but only trivially so. That is, that what is doing the work to support the truth of the claim is really something much lower level and benign than it might appear at first glance.
But more on that when I start actually parsing out cases of the political form of ad hominem arguments. You'll know that part when you see it because i'll start talking about beliefs and intents in relation to my examples.
For now, though, i want to head back to Goodman's "all ravens are black" statement. Goodman is discussing problems of induction (a new Hume). He notes something intersting about collecting proof for the claim "all ravens are black" (caveated as you need to know we are discussing natural non-albinos, etc). Thinking of the world as a large Vin diagram we put a big circle around all the black crows. Everything that is a crow and is black is inside the circle, everthing that is not black and a crow is outside the circle. Note, however, that there is only one circle. The statements "all crows are black" and "all non-black things are not crows" are both identically identified in the big Vin diagram. They are logically the exact same statement.
Now, i'm still thinking this part through ... and i haven't decided yet how strong of a claim i want to make using this idea. But here is the idea, out there to dwell on now. That idea being, roughly ... for every statment that makes a claim there is a logically equal negation claim made at the same time. I'm still working on that wording too.
How it will play into the overall arguement is also still a bit hazy. But i have this much written now, so i can concentrate on that next step. It will somehow tie into my argument about direct versus indirect claim. The negation claims, that "all non-black things are not ravens", i'll claim is an indirect claim of the direct claim "all ravens are black".
"How am I supposed to know what I think until I have said it?" - the Duchess in Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland". (don't quote me on that, it's from memory)
I am going to work with Nelson Goodman's intuition pump statement "all crows are black", as i plan to use that later in the argument anyway.
The statement i am going to use right now is "all crows viewed in pitch dark appear black". Translated into logical notation this would read ...
A(x) (Cx & Dx) => Bx ... {For all objects 'x', if x is a crow and x is seen in dark places then x will appear black}.
[Actually that would say they "are" black rather than "appear", but i'm concerned with the front end and am hoping to avoid a confusing looking notation].
What is important here is the conjunction of Cx and Dx in front of the conditional statement. The Cx has tied itself into the logical notation as part of a conjunction ... making it necessary for the truth value of the statement to come out true.
But we know, physically, that this is a misnomer. ANY object viewed in pitch dark will appear black, whether it be a black raven, a red ball or a yellow banana.
That is where we would chime in with "what is doing the work here". The statement is not about ravens at all. What is doing the work here is the fact that the object is being viewed in the dark. The mention of raven at all is a red herring (i think that is the proper use of that term).
In the real world of debate, about things in the real world, i have found this notion to be greatly undervalued.
It will tie into my argument in two places. The first is in the notion of ad hominem argumentation itself. What is doing the work in an ad hominem attack or fallacy is the rhetoric, not the argument (see last post for more on the ad hominem argumentation form). The second place this notion will appear will be buttressing the distinction between direct and indirect violation of the ad hominem form ... that is ... the claim will be that a certain view of debate may render ALL debate to be of an ad hominem nature, and therefore some claims that one is indirectly doing the same thing the target of the debate was indirectly doing will be claimed to be true, but only trivially so. That is, that what is doing the work to support the truth of the claim is really something much lower level and benign than it might appear at first glance.
But more on that when I start actually parsing out cases of the political form of ad hominem arguments. You'll know that part when you see it because i'll start talking about beliefs and intents in relation to my examples.
For now, though, i want to head back to Goodman's "all ravens are black" statement. Goodman is discussing problems of induction (a new Hume). He notes something intersting about collecting proof for the claim "all ravens are black" (caveated as you need to know we are discussing natural non-albinos, etc). Thinking of the world as a large Vin diagram we put a big circle around all the black crows. Everything that is a crow and is black is inside the circle, everthing that is not black and a crow is outside the circle. Note, however, that there is only one circle. The statements "all crows are black" and "all non-black things are not crows" are both identically identified in the big Vin diagram. They are logically the exact same statement.
Now, i'm still thinking this part through ... and i haven't decided yet how strong of a claim i want to make using this idea. But here is the idea, out there to dwell on now. That idea being, roughly ... for every statment that makes a claim there is a logically equal negation claim made at the same time. I'm still working on that wording too.
How it will play into the overall arguement is also still a bit hazy. But i have this much written now, so i can concentrate on that next step. It will somehow tie into my argument about direct versus indirect claim. The negation claims, that "all non-black things are not ravens", i'll claim is an indirect claim of the direct claim "all ravens are black".
"How am I supposed to know what I think until I have said it?" - the Duchess in Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland". (don't quote me on that, it's from memory)
posted by Thomas F. Schminke at 1:28 AM
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