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Political Discourse, the Argumentum ad Misericordiam, and the Tu Quoque Fallacy

It is not a novel insight that the most recent inauguration has been contentious, nor is it a novel insight that political discourse has been so acrimonious that it is less a true discourse and more ... read more

A Conservative Guide to Rhetoric

AD HOMINEM. Attacking a person instead of making an argument. Barack Obama is an “Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug.” —Tea Party spokesman Mark Williams, discussing the President. AD MISERICORDIAM ... read more

Use of "Ad Hominem" Argument in Political Discourse

cases where it is very difficult or even impossible to tell whether a given argument used in a text of discourse ... it is a genuine ad hominem argument or not. This is the problem Hamblin (1970) ... read more

One Cheer for Whataboutism

Tu quoque is a subset of the so-called ad hominem argument: a strike against the character ... In today’s cut-throat political discourse, that may be too much to hope for. Ben Yagoda’s (benyagoda.com) ... read more

David Suzuki: Cutting through polluted public discourse

The debasement of public discourse through poorly ... by everyone from climate-science deniers to political trolls: changing the topic. Known as a red herring or sometimes a tu quoque (“you too”) ... read more

The most dangerous result of the CIA torture scandal

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? Not any different than America's subjugation of Vietnam. Political prisoners? America's prison system is no model for the world. Civil rights? What about the horror ... read more

Relevance Reviewed: The case of argumentum ad hominem

This is demonstrated for the argumentum and hominem, which is erroneously treated as a homogenous type of relevance fallacy in logico-centric analyses, so that cases where this is not justified must ... read more

A New Climate Survey Tells Us What?

Instead, they keep refighting old battles that are no longer relevant to a constructive discourse. The latest example is this survey by John Cook et al that is getting a lot of undeserved attention in ... read more

The art of the smear: how the far right destroyed public discourse

The art of the smear: how the far right destroyed public discourse ... Political “attack ads” were once frowned upon; ... In this case — the argumentum ad hominem ... read more

Guest Post – The Thinker’s Evolutionary Argument Against God (EAAG)

However, while recently debating a challenge I proposed to theistic evolutionists against the incompatibility of an omni-benevolent creator with evolution, I’ve come up with a counter argument to ... read more

Stephen Hawking Settles the God Question Once and For All

I fear that some subtleties of the argument may be lost. But if we’re lucky, other people elsewhere on the internet will also talk about these questions, and we’ll get it all sorted out. Let me know ... read more