Charles:
>Let us not forget that Brad D's original statement commits tu quoque
fallacy
>with respect to Stalin , as Michael Perelman alluded to.
tu quoque is trying to undermine an argument by saying, "but you do it too; you're a hypocrite."
^^^^^^ CB: Yea, I think you are right. Just plain ad hominem, not tu quoque ad hominem.
^^^
I think you've misunderstood Perelman. He said that bringing Brad's stature or lack thereof into the discussion is irrelevant. In his own tactful way, he was supporting what I'd said. (correct me if I'm wrong Michael....)
^^^^^^
CB: I might have. I have to look at the post. I recall him saying that if Stalin won a Nobel Prize for mathematics, his political crimes wouldn't be an argument that his math was bad. I took this to mean by analogy, that mentioning Stalin's crimes is an ad hominem argument against Stalin's opinion that the law of value was still operating in the Soviet Union.
>Being a mass
>murderer is irrelevant to the validity of Stalin's opinion on the continued
>operation of the law of value within part of the Soviet Union. Then , I
>think, there is a second layer of ad hominem in what Brad says, because he
>accuses Sweezy of bad motive in agreeing with Stalin. Not that Sweezy has
>made a bad argument, but that he agrees with someone bad. So, Brad D.'s
>argument is doubly flawed, since we are talking logic.
Yes, but I didn't need to repeat what everyone else had already pointed out. Brad starring as pivotbabe for the circle jerk just doesn't thrill me enough I guess. Don't get me wrong, I DO like to watch, but hmmmmm I prefer really studly hunks as pivotbabe.
^^^^^^^ CB: I missed the posts that criticized Brad's argument as ad hominem.
What occurred to me was ad hominem sort of begets ad hominem. Brad attacks Sweezey ad hominem and it pisses off people who attack him ad hominem.
^^^^^^^
>Ironic that the thread has moved to defense of Brad D based on the non-ad
>hominem principle, all there are in Brad's , uh , "argument" are one or two
>ad hominems.
Tsk. Tsk. This is a logical fallacy. If I criticize X's arguments against Y, that does not make me a supporter/defender of Y.
^^^^^^
CB: Well, make that defend Brad's _argument_.
Just to take it further (!), often if one criticizes X's arguments against Y's _arguments_ , then one is defending Y's agruments.
If you say there is something wrong with Steve's argument against Brad's "argument", there is a sense in which you are defending Brad's argument, no ? You are defending it from Steve's argument.
^^^^^^^
It makes me a critic of X -- in this case, a critic of Steve's use of logical fallacy.
^^^^^^^ CB: OK ( see above, but...) I take it you are saying you disagree with Brad's "argument" ? But you are just pointing out that Steve's criticism of it is flawed.
I brought it up, as I noted, to illustrate what Carrol's been trying to say about the poverty of the discussions here.
^^^^^^^^^
Out of all this: Remember Sweezey !