Real-world sensitivities and game names

[Omnirizon]

lch said:

Oh yeah, that's exactly right, this subtlety might have slipped my mind. I'm not one to attack another person, only his arguments or his beliefs. Stop being such girls!

this brings up an unusual philosophical question. can you actually attack a person's arguments and beliefs without attacking them?

can you actually attack a person without attacking their arguments and beliefs?

if we are our ideals, then no.
if we are our actions, then no.

so what are we then?

now, in light of this, is an attack on our personality (whatever that may be) or an attack on our arguments or beliefs actually any violence to us at all?

given the performative quality of our existence, isn't limiting our freedom to act the only real way to attack us?

[HoneyBadger]

I think you can attack a person's actions and ideals both, without attacking the person-but it takes a bit of a leap of faith. It's counter-intuitive, since we're not designed to do so-we make snap judgements, it's a survival instinct-but people change constantly, in little or big ways. Maybe not the core person, but their real world experiences, and how they adapt themselves to them. We're just primed for attacking a person for their immediate actions, rather than taking a person as a whole entity, from birth to death. We're a short-sighted lot, without enough insight into other people. It's how nature made us.

Hard to go against Mother Nature, but it's the only way to see the big picture.

[Omnirizon]

how do attack a person without attacking some action of there's then? every attack on a person is a de-facto attack on something they believe, did, or said. Even non-action is an action, just as apolitical is a politic.

WE ARE PERFORMATIVE. can't get around it. so any attack on something we performed (something said or done) is an attack on who we are. We can't attack a belief or essence that does not have performative aspect. If a person believes something, then we can't attack that belief unless it influences their actions in someway. Similarly, a belief cannot exist without affecting action.

Given this, and the need to constantly discourse, is an attack on a person, or a personal attack, actually an attack?

Isn't the only real attack an attack on a person's freedom to act?

[HoneyBadger]

Or not to act. To merely exist is ofcourse a potentially desireable state of being. As in, merely "to be".

[Omnirizon]

yummmy.

tastes like zen.

[HoneyBadger]

But the point is, I can argue something, and the argument I'm trying to make can be criticised, and I can take that impersonally enough to deal with it, rather than feeling that it is a personal attack on myself and my integrity. I can be judged "wrong" without my integrity as a person called into question. In other words, an argument can be debated, even heatedly, without resorting to gunfire, if we maintain our cool.

[Omnirizon]

There's but one flaw in the premise of your argument,
and that, sir, is that you are a(n)...

aww, forget it. I already got in trouble once for that line.


so you are mature, stable, and confident enough for that. but other people blow their lid when you attack them/their arguments. I don't really think their is a difference between people and their arguments, and there's not a difference between a person and what that person does; I guess that's my only point.

I would say that the only ad hominem (a _personal_ attack) that is possible is relating a person's beliefs to some unrelated action; and from my experience that's pretty accepted in most academic debates (not that they are for any reason a great standard, just saying). There are words in science that are more accepted than others for using as insults, but in the end saying so and so is incompetent is no different than saying that he is an idiot, or a stupidhead, or whatever. And dealing with these types of insults and oppositions are just life. The only ad hominem is when people say such and such's ideas are worthless because they like to sleep around, or are gay, or something. Certainly promiscuity or sexuality can influence a person's ideas, but you're attacking the idea on the basis of an insignificant relationship to that person's ability to create contextually sound ideas.

the other type of ad hominem is limiting peoples freedom to act, my other point. How would you like it if someone locked this thread in the middle of our conversation?