My philosophical pet peeves
This is just a start:
Having to start a new discussion because all the current ones are lame.
People who accuse me of an ad hominem attack because I’m mean to their ideas or a bit rough with my language. Hey you, yes you… asshole - an ad hominem attack is an attack directly on your person – your intelligence or personal hygiene. If I say “this is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” it may be uncivil, it may be bad philosophy, but it’s not an ad hominem attack. If I say “why should I even consider the stupid ideas of someone as butt ugly as you are,” that is.
More generally, people who respond to an argument by saying it represents a logical fallacy rather than being explicit about what’s wrong with it. First of all, they’re usually wrong. Second, they’re lazy. Calling something a logical fallacy is a way to avoid thinking about what has been said. It short-circuits the process of reasoning. It’s gamesmanship, not philosophy.
Justified True Belief and the Gettier problems. These are the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard. Why should I even discuss such stupid ideas with someone as butt ugly as you are? Gettier was also very ugly. Here's an actual picture:
Students who come on the forum to try to get us to do their homework for them.
Failure to understand that words are not reality. Example – you’re going to hell because you ate a cucumber. Reference – John 5, 14. “Merchant says ‘getch your cucumbers here.’ Jesus says ‘God, I really hate cucumbers.” Example – I read about a guy who thought workers who were about to lose their jobs because their factory was shutting down shouldn’t be allowed to get together, buy the factory, and run it themselves because it was “communism.”
More specifically, pretending that paradoxes actually mean something and getting all excited that you’ve figured out something important about the nature of reality. Hey, Zeno. Look at me. I’m walking through the fucking door you butt ugly son of a bitch.
People who toss out their turd of an idea and then don’t participate in the discussion after that.
People who disrupt discussions about science with conspiracy theories about how they understand the scientific basis of reality better than thousands of scientists and philosophers working for thousands of years. Einstein was a fraud. Light doesn’t act as both a wave and a particle, Schrodinger just needed new glasses. Pepsi is better than Coke.
Speaking of Schrodinger, people who don't know that whole cat thing was a joke.
I'll see if I can think of others.
Having to start a new discussion because all the current ones are lame.
People who accuse me of an ad hominem attack because I’m mean to their ideas or a bit rough with my language. Hey you, yes you… asshole - an ad hominem attack is an attack directly on your person – your intelligence or personal hygiene. If I say “this is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” it may be uncivil, it may be bad philosophy, but it’s not an ad hominem attack. If I say “why should I even consider the stupid ideas of someone as butt ugly as you are,” that is.
More generally, people who respond to an argument by saying it represents a logical fallacy rather than being explicit about what’s wrong with it. First of all, they’re usually wrong. Second, they’re lazy. Calling something a logical fallacy is a way to avoid thinking about what has been said. It short-circuits the process of reasoning. It’s gamesmanship, not philosophy.
Justified True Belief and the Gettier problems. These are the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard. Why should I even discuss such stupid ideas with someone as butt ugly as you are? Gettier was also very ugly. Here's an actual picture:
Students who come on the forum to try to get us to do their homework for them.
Failure to understand that words are not reality. Example – you’re going to hell because you ate a cucumber. Reference – John 5, 14. “Merchant says ‘getch your cucumbers here.’ Jesus says ‘God, I really hate cucumbers.” Example – I read about a guy who thought workers who were about to lose their jobs because their factory was shutting down shouldn’t be allowed to get together, buy the factory, and run it themselves because it was “communism.”
More specifically, pretending that paradoxes actually mean something and getting all excited that you’ve figured out something important about the nature of reality. Hey, Zeno. Look at me. I’m walking through the fucking door you butt ugly son of a bitch.
People who toss out their turd of an idea and then don’t participate in the discussion after that.
People who disrupt discussions about science with conspiracy theories about how they understand the scientific basis of reality better than thousands of scientists and philosophers working for thousands of years. Einstein was a fraud. Light doesn’t act as both a wave and a particle, Schrodinger just needed new glasses. Pepsi is better than Coke.
Speaking of Schrodinger, people who don't know that whole cat thing was a joke.
I'll see if I can think of others.
Comments (52)
You've got it backwards. One of my pet peeves is when someone says "hmm ill need to think about that" or "i think you might be right," because then I don't get to feel superior to them. I have to pretend I "respect" them!
Intolerably inconvenient.
BUT
http://existentialcomics.com/comic/9
seems apropos
People who say "x fallacy" in response to something you said without explaining why it's 'x fallacy' is annoying.
I think my biggest pet peeve is responding to the letter of someone's argument rather than its spirit.
This is total bullshit. And one of my pet peeves.
What they, and you are talking about is INSULTS.
An ad hominem is something entirely different.
Allow me to explain.
A makes an argument
B says that argument cannot be rightbecause you are not qualified, are inadequate, are always wrong,,, etc....
For example.
"The chemical symbol for salt is NaCl."
"Rubbish. That can't be correct because you are not a chemist, but a road sweeper"
If you hate this one tale a look at https://www.quora.com
If you want some fun answer their questions with a set of common misconceptions.
Sadly Americans exist whether you believe in them or not. They stand as a warning against stupidity for the rest of the world. Now they have their God. Trump is without a shadow of doubt the single most stupid leader of any country since the dawn of history. He can't read, he can barely write. He's a narcissistic fantasist. ... sorry went off on one there.
That’s not arrogant at all!Quoting T Clark
There, there, who upset little Clarkie?
Hmm... I'll need to think about that.
Following up on our earlier discussion, is this or is it not an argument ad hominem? And not on me, but on me and everyone like me.
subject/verb agreement error: ...are insults. Pet peeve #20942.
unnecessary punctuation error ...they and you. Pet peeve 20943.
Quoting charleton
All true, but then you have your Brexit geniuses. Colossal stupidity.
Quoting Moliere
You may very well be a failure, but we require more evidence.
Pet peeve #20944: Unsubstantiated claims.
What else don't you know?
In Safari on a Mac, mouse over the image desired, holding the control key, click and select from the options... "copy image address". Then, back in TPF, click on the image button at the top of the text box, and paste the image address. Press GO and presto
There are other ways of doing this.
Here's the grammar police again:roll:
Quoting Bitter Crank
very true..
It is a deliciously fun comic. (thanks for the tip btw)
not really.
If anything it would be an ad gentum, or ad populem.
For it to be a fallacy type, I'd have to be reacting against a specific argument. The full phrase of ad hom is fallacies argumentum ad hominem.
But basically it's just an out an out insult of a nation.
Time will tell about Brexit. But I can't think what this has to do with me, or my observations about Trump.
But any nation who elects a president who got fewer votes than his competitor needs it's fucking head examined.
Look in the dictionary - This is the actual definition of "philosophy." You're just trying to take the fun out of it.
I was just responding to your A Look into the Mind of God discussion and I thought of something else that bothers me - classifying the question of God's existence as metaphysics.
It seems to me that this is one of the greatest flaws of large swathes of philosophy, academic and otherwise.
Agreed. I'm going to put it on my list for a future discussion of it's own.
The dubious legacy of Plato.
I'd be really interested in that discussion.
Not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean words are not facts? Words, as soon as they are spoken, written or typed, no longer exist in one’s mind but become part of the shared reality.
This is a philosophical pet peeves discussion. It is generally expected that posts follow the stated theme, although sometimes things drift. One of the pet peeves identified is people asking for help with their homework. If you know that and are being ironic, welcome to the forum. If not, I at least appreciate that you are being out in the open about it.
Whatever, it would make sense to put this in another location.
I think that’s what he’d advise you to do. It seems you’re in desperate need of letting off some steam.
I think he means that people tend to privilege words and their definition way beyond their role as representative approximations of the things they seek to denote. Nothing important about the existence of a written word is real. Words are wholly dependant on the language community which claims to understand them. They have no independent, absolute or unambiguous meaning.
I gave several examples, although I'm not satisfied I was clear enough. One of these days I'll start up a new discussion unless one of you do it first.
I classified it as metaphysics? Oh, my apologies. That should belong in Philosophy of Religion
No, I wasn't complaining about anything you did, I was just referring to a comment I had made in your discussion.
People believe that just because you argue in favor of something that it is your sacred belief that it is true.
If I want to I can argue in favor of starving people to death if they don't work or against the idea of doing so.
I was taught that if you cannot defend an idea that you find appalling, then you are also unable to to defeat those who do defend it.
It is called seeing both sides of the argument, and there are quite a few that really need to take up the practice.
maybe they are here because they trully want to learn.
There are some nasty people around here that like to insult you if you make mistakes.
I really don't care as long as it understandable, but the grammar NAZIs do tend to get a bit pissed of.
One of the interesting things about Tolkien's LOTR is that he told the story mostly with words that are modern versions of Anglo-Saxon. Even though English was impregnated by French, with a huge brood of French offspring, the core of English and its grammar are Old English (or Anglo-Saxon). It's been around 30 years since I analyzed LOTR, but it seems to me that about 75% of the words in LOTR were Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, Frisian, and the like. 20% were words derived from French,and 5% were "other" (not counting any of Tolkien's invented languages). The large share of AS words imparts a distinct flavor to the text, and is what makes LOTR very accessible to so many English readers.
Some contemporary science fiction writers whose work I enjoy greatly like to salt their modern English with extremely rare words which have very esoteric roots. They also use more complex sentence structure. There is every reason under many stars for space ship captains in the 25th century to use educated, complex English.
Its a valid form of detecting falsehood, but im talking about the subject itself and not grammer or the likes. No, english isnt my first language, im norwegian. The biggest fear I had before posting anything here was that people would just call me stupid and in a way bully me into leaving. But so far, so good! :)
Have patience. There's plenty of time to call you stupid and drive you away. (Joke). In truth though, one never knows when one is going to be pounced on, or who will do the honors. Sort of like life itself.
Take your time and think about what you want to say, then read what you wrote to make sure that they are the same thing.