In Part Three’s video, Associate Professor of Philosophy Kevin deLaplante talked about the abusive Ad Hominem fallacy. This is the fallacy of rejecting a claim or an argument given by someone because we don’t like something about the person, and we mistake criticism of a person for criticism of his or her claim or argument.
Professor deLapante’s most blatant example was, “Your argument is bad because YOU SUCKI!” — The problem isn’t with criticism or praise, it is with confusing the judging of a person with the judging of an argument.
Several examples of Ad Hominem attacks that Sid used on this Blog are listed here. However, you may discover that Sid did not use the Ad Hominem fallacy during the debate, which ended on December 8, 2011. The reason may be because he was getting away with his intellectual dishonesty since no one was stopping him. Sid’s use of the Ad Hominem fallacy comes afterwards.
On January 2, 2012, Sid said, “You’re a mythomaniac, a propagandist, and endorser of one of the most repressive regimes in the world. And your website is a series of disconnected nonsense decorated by retarded videos. You can’t construct an argument to save your life, and the sycophants who show up here saying, ‘Yes, Lloyd, I agree with you,’ belong in Sgt. McGillicuty’s Travelling Nutbar Show.
“Your ideas are an advertisement for how whacky you are, and you’re so whacky, you don’t even realize it. Ever wonder why no one except other crazies post comments here? I’ll tell you: those thousands of viewers read your posts and think, ‘Good god!’”
Note – I should have started deleting Sid’s comments when his use of Ad Hominem occurred.
However, I started deleting them on January 11, 2012
The “Red Herring” Fallacy. Source: The Critical Thinking Academy
Here are a few examples of Sid’s ad hominem fallacies from the Deleted Comment File —
On January 11 at 14:17, Sid said, “There is no such thing as weasal [Note: proper spelling is weasel] words. Again, that’s teenagese [Note: no such word]. You could never use the term weasal words in academic discourse, just like you could never use dude, LMAO, bittersweet, etc. There are proper – adult – terms for such things. That you used the phrase weasal words underscores a dearth of knowledge, juvenility, or both.
“You can quote or copy-and-paste all the fallacy definitions you wish, but you’ll never be able to employ them in argument or rebuttal. You lack the wherewithal.”
On January 11 at 19:21, Sid said, “You lack the intelligence to argue, so you ban. What do all those books you’ve discovered say about that?” [Note: This was after he claimed there were no books on the topic, and I proved him wrong.]
On January 12 at 09:21, Sid said, “You delete the posts because you’re a propagandist and by extension a censor. You don’t have the intellectual wherewithall to debate, so you ban.”
On January 12 at 09:24, Sid said, “Banning my comments only makes you look like a bad sport. You can’t argue – you don’t know how – so you delete.”
On January 12 at 17:22, Sid said, “You just don’t know how to debate, so you cheat by deleting your opponents’ remarks.”
On January 14 at 20:19, Sid said, “You’re an imbecile Lloyd, a soft headed moron.”
In the Ad Hominem video in Part 3, Professor deLaplante says an argument is a collection of claims linked by relations of logical entailment or support. The plausibility or implausibility of those claims and their validity or invalidity of the argument given isn’t determined by facts about the moral character of the person asserting the argument… Facts about someone’s moral character by themselves don’t make it anymore less likely that their arguments are good or bad.
Ad hominem arguments rely on the following types of premises:
(Almost) any claim that P makes about X is (probably) false, because of some feature of P.
Meaning, (Almost) any claim Lloyd makes about China or the Chinese is (probably) false, because of some feature of Lloyd’s moral character as defined by Sid.
or
(Almost) any argument that P gives about X is (probably bad, because of some feature of P.
Meaning, (Almost) any argument that Lloyd gives about China and the Chinese is (probably) bad, because of some feature of Lloyd’s moral character as defined by Sid.
Continued on January 30, 2012 in Discovering Intellectual Dishonesty – Part 5 or return to Part 3
Meet the real Sid and learn about him from his own words and the opinions of others
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.
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Mr. Parfitt said, “But ad hominem attacks are not the only thing you delete. Whenever you lose an exchange, like your defense of using the word ravage incorrectly – nay, absurdly – you delete that, too.”
Response from Blog host: “The comment where Mr. Parfitt criticized my use of the word ‘ravage’ was deleted several hours after I responded when it dawned on me that I had fallen for another “Red Herring”. I’m learning. If I respond to any of Mr. Parfitt’s logical fallacies, I will strive to refocus them on the topic of the post.
And the topic of this post has nothing to do with the contextual meaning of a word (ravage) or my character. The topic was about intellectual dishonesty and the use of logical fallacies, which Mr. Parfitt just admitted using when he said, “But ad hominem attacks are not the only thing you delete.”
Mr. Parfitt attempted to shift the topic away from intellectual dishonesty by accusing me of misusing the word “ravage” and says, “I (he’s talking about me—don’t confuse which stupid person he is talking about) am so incredibly stupid it defies imagination,” which is another ad hominem attack.
If we are to believe Mr. Parfitt that I am incredibly stupid because I didn’t use the word “ravage” as he says it should be used, “Who cares?”
It doesn’t matter if I used the word ravaged correctly. What matters is sticking to the premise of the argument whcih is intellectual dishonesty. How I used the word ravaged in a sentence is irrelevant.
If I write, “Mr. Parfitt ravaged 1.3 billion Chinese people with his biased opinions of China’s culture,” what does the context of that sentence mean?
In addition, Mr. Parfitt also said, “Whenever you lose an exchange…” In fact, Mr. Parfitt is the last person that should be the judge of who won or lost an exchange in an argument when he is one of the participants. A judge should be impartial and Mr. Parfitt is not impartial when he claims victory.
This isn’t a contest to see who won. This isn’t a game of chess, a golf game or a tennis match. There will be readers that agree with Mr. Parfitt and others that agree with what I say. Each individual decides for him or herself whom they agree with and some will split their judgment while some will go away thinking these two guys have heads full of cracker crumbs.
Claiming victory is also a logical fallacy.
In addition, in another deleted comment, Mr. Parfitt used the Straw Man fallacy when he said, “You’re a censor, highly ironic given your unfailing endorsement of China’s government. Like all censors, they think they’re positioning themselves ahead by staying in control, but in reality they are just making themselves look foolish.”
I have never endorsed China’s government. Not once. The most I have done is argue that China’s current government is not a dictatorship but is a republic and even then I provided facts and evidence and allowed readers to come to their own conclusions. Unlike Mr. Parfitt, who tells others what they should think, which means they must agree with him or face ridicule, I allow readers to decide for themselves.
But endorse the CCP — never. In addition, I have never said the CCP is a democracy. When I use the word republic or democracy, I’m using the same definitions that have been used on this site to describe those two terms. In fact, I have never endorsed the US government, which is a political circus of fools, which is why I’m registered as an independent voter instead of as a democrat or a republican or any of the smaller political parties that fill that tent of clowns.
“The Straw Man fallacy is committed when an arguer distorts and opponent’s argument for the purpose of more easily attacking it, demolishes the distorted argument, and then concludes that the opponent’s real argument has been demolished. By so doing, the arguer is said to have set up a straw man and knocked it down, only to conclude that the real man (opposing argument) has been knocked down as well.” Source: ‘A Concise Introduction to Logic’ by Patrick J. Hurley, page120.
Mr. .Parfitt’s claim of victory was part of his use of the Straw Man fallacy.
Thank you for all the great examples of logical fallacies, Mr. Parfitt. Several fallacies used in one comment: Red Herring, Ad hominem, Straw Man, tu quoque (argument against the person) — where one arguer presents the other as a hypocrite, which has nothing to do with the premise of the arguement; and equivocation where the conclusion depends on the wrong interpretation of a syntactically ambiguous statement.
I wonder if I missed any. Well, as I keep learning, maybe I will recognize them, but since I am not the expert Mr. Parfitt has demonstrated he is when using logical fallacies, I’m not going to hold my breath.