What demands have I made that I have failed to live up to? Elizabeth, you won’t even answer my questions. Philosophy - analytical skills - is not about preaching to sinners, it is about responding to objections. If you refuse to respond to objections, to justify your claims when challenged…
:
Its worth noting that your response to something Elizabeth said in this thread was to call her a hypocrite and sinner. Rather than evaluating the intellectual merits of what she actually said. I highlighted the most important portion for reader’s convenience:
Today, 2:19 pm
Betterave
Regular Member Join Date: August 4, 2009
Location: Ottawa
Posts: 3,440
Religion: Catholic
Re: “How dare you insult me!” - “What…!?”
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elizabeth502
Assumptions are evident in word choice, in tone. Several other posters have pointed this out quite well, in several much earlier posts on this thread. Posts 72 and 77 come to mind, as well, of course, as post 91, in which you used the word “nonsense” three times, without explaining why it would be nonsensical to use tone as an indicator of intent.
Okay, so is this you offering specific substance? I checked post 72 and it is very clearly nonsense to claim either (a) that post 72 is based on an assumption of my ‘intellectual superiority’ or (b) that use of the word ‘nonsense’ constitutes an assumption of my intellectual superiority (as opposed to a quite possibly fair comment on a nonsensical comment).
**Quote:
You dismiss the comments of other posters as “silly,” and now even accusing one of us of sinning (against You? ).
Is that an issue you take lightly? That’s unfortunate. And hypocritical.**
Quote:
Look, as I said earlier, it’s easy to get carried away in the heat of debate, and when one is passiionate about an issue it is difficult not to do that, at times. There are some people who seem to be phlegmatic and immune to “reactivity,” but I think they’re the exception, as they are less interested in debate to begin with. But when tone dominates, then the message tends to be received as emotional rather than intellectual, and personal as opposed to conceptual. The more someone wants to persuade intellectually, the less personal and incendiary should be the tone of the argument. For example, earlier on this very thread you stated your points, and/or isolated words, in capital letters. That also conveys a tone. Based only on this thread, I think your tone is dominating, and apparently I am not alone in that observation.
Sure, but strongly analytical, logically rigorous arguments are the kind of arguments I use and such arguments are intrinsically ‘dominating.’ Is it fair to fault me for using such arguments?
Quote:
Sometimes it’s best for me to step back before I post something and reread it calmly after a pause, even though I have to log in again. In addition, it’s sometimes good if I imagine how another respected poster might frame a reply, and use him or her as a role model for me to edit my own reply.
That sounds like a good idea. I hope you can do that consistently. One question you might ask yourself when doing this is: Am I actually responding to what my interlocutor has written: the actual text, the words, the propositions, the way they are framed as an argument? Or am I just projecting my own view and insisting on it no matter what my interlocutor says? If you’re not sure, or if he has to repeatedly tell you that you’re getting it wrong, you can try to put his argument in your own words and say “so you argument in post such-and-such is …(fill in the blank)?”
The wind blows where it wills; you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from, or where it goes to.