Re: [Marxism] Re: East Timor

[Carrol Cox <cbcox@xxxxxxxxx>]

Perhaps the distinction between personal attacks and ad hominem
arguments needs to be made here.

Suppose P supports position X.

If I say, "P supports X, and therefore he is a prick," I have made a
personal attack (grounded in the claim that X is so vile a position that
only pricks would support it).

If I say P is a prick, and therefore X is wrong, I have made an ad
hominem argument, a logical fallacy sometimes called poisoning the wells
of discourse. Personal attacks (or attacks on groups or institutions)
may or may not be appropriate, but they are profoundly different from ad
hominem arguments. Ad hominem arguments are _always_ to be condemned.
Personal attacks may or may not be appropriate in a given context.

Lou (or the article he forwarded) certainly did attack the DSP, but it
is quite ignorant to call that an ad hominem attack.

Carrol

Louis Proyect wrote:
>
> Ben Courtice:
> >(Generally ignoring Louis Proyect's ad hominem attacks on the DSP, which
> >seem to be standard for any issue where he's on shaky ground... )
>
> Ad hominem? What in the world are you talking about? [clip]

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism