Argument is war; thus forum becomes battle ground.

Shapeless, I have not read up on all the topic links you provided, but I took your word for it. I am not arguing whether or not your point is valid or right. Actually, it very well may be. I simply deplore any ad hominem attack, because I fail to see the use of those, especially in a forum. And especially especially in a topic which actually tries to adress such kind of behavior, in an admittedly circumvent manner.

Fresco - 'limited breadth of reading' -> no 'candidate for general debate' and no 'critical thinker'? I won't argue that a good reading foundation helps in gaining perspective, but should this mean such people are unable of thinking rationally or critically?

wait, did you honestly just say that coberst has to be well read to be a critical thinker?

no, you said it was his rigidity. carry on.

najmelliw,

The main point is that coberst preaches from a limited number of texts. Any philosophy student who resorted to that would fail the course even if the course held that text as central. In that sense his breadth is limited and his "critical faculty" is signally absent with respect to most of this audience. Of course relative to his vision of the "uneducated masses" he ascribes to himself "superiority", but this stylistically antagonizes "educated others" on the multiple forums he compulsively blitzes.

that's really a common problem with people that think they're philosophers though, isn't it? it seems unfair to blame it all on coberst.

besides, i still think he's more reasonable about that than lots of people i've met, college philosophy professors included.

Does the problem lie primarily with "young people"? I can think of avowedly older A2Kers, for example, who spend almost all of their time on here berating contemporary society for their intellectual laziness, criticizing institutions of higher learning for their (unsubstantiated) flaws, and even preemptively chastizing people for not having library cards in their wallets. I'd be curious to hear what advice you would prescribe to such relentlessly negative older folks who apparently share the belief with young people that being negative is cool.

If you mean "ad hominem" attack by its complete definition--namely, attacking someone's personal character as a substitute for addressing the substance of his or her argument--then I'm with you on that.



I didn't get the impression that Fresco was "blaming" this condition on Coberst.

Correct...I don't "blame" coberst for his compulsive need to exercise his mental capacities by forum blitzing. We are all victims of the "addiction" to a lesser extent ! What I object to is his supercilious style which unfortunately puts him into the "Holy Joe" category.

what i meant was, that he's getting a lot of flak for being (at worst, i think) a tiny part of the problem.

as for "supercilious," i think it's an unfortunate side effect of reading lots of things that are written that way. we end up emulating, at least in part, the things we've read. if he doesn't read anything laid back, he's not going to write that way. "egotistical" isn't the first word that comes to mind. maybe the tenth word, but i try to give credit for reasonable effort.

We all have flaws. Some of those flaws can become apparent in
forum posts, but certainly not all. If one perceives a flaw in another person, is the correct course of action to confront this person over and over with this problem?
Especially in a forum. If someone doesn't take heed of the suggestions made and change his posts accordingly, the odds are fairly safe that, if (s)he has agreed with the posters criticism in the first place, (s)he has at least decided to ignore said advice and continue posting in the original format.
That behavior won't change if the poster is continuously confronted with these perceived faults. More then likely, (s)he will start reacting in harsh posts of their own. And that is a pitfall best avoided, because it leads to behavior perhaps best described as 'intellectual' namecalling.

Such is the price to pay for the anonimity of internet fora.

Heckle--to harass and try to disconcert with questions, challenges, or gibes--badger

Badger- black hairy animal with prominent white markings, nocturnal.

so what exactly does coberst do that is so wrong towards philosophy?

at least hes posting and doing something, everyone else here is simply reacting.

I think that you need to get a new dictionary.

OGIONIK WROTE


Read Shapeless above for chapter and verse.



But most of us are not reacting to the content, rather to the pedantic presentation and his rationalising away of negative comments to him as evidence for his simplistic thesis. i.e. this is coberst in messianic mode .."Forgive them O Lord for they knoweth not that they are victims of the holy metaphor".

and i would usually sympathize, but this thread which has become about coberst is about as pedantic as anything i've seen here. i'm not saying you're not entitled, have fun with it, it's just odd, to me.

Screw the detractors.

I think you make some great points coberst. Your posts, especially this one, get my mind whirring more than 90% of the posts I see here. And that's not an insult to the site, its probably the most intelligent place I've run across so far anywhere online.

So keep it up.

It'd be one thing if this were a case of our obsessing over "flaws" rather than on someone's actual arguments, but in Coberst's case the flaws impinge directly on the argument. As I've tried to pointing out to Coberst before, he often exemplifies the very things he pontificates against in his posts. To take just one example, he espouses "moving from the particular to the general" but routinely begins with generalizations and tries to pass them off as particulars (as he has voluntarily stated himself). By asking him how he reconciles contradictory beliefs like these, we are directly engaging the terms of his argument--again, you can't ask for much more than that. If Coberst's threads seem like shouting matches, it's because his own language violates the prescriptions he doles out to others, thus making it impossible to address his argument without addressing him--which he (and apparently others) then interprets as ad hominem attacks that can be dismissed by lamenting the negativity of "young people," effectively derailing the conversation. Such is the nature of hypocritical arguments. They will always be as much about the arguer as about the argument. I don't think any amount of head-shaking over the nature of internet etiquette is going to change that fact, but if you know of a better way to deal with self-defeating arguments then please suggest away.

As can be seen in the links I provided on the previous page, I've tried suggesting ways to keep the discussion productive: Coberst would avoid a lot of the name-calling he gets if would just answer questions directly. It's worked before, but that was evidently an isolated case. (As you can see, he did it again in this very thread: rather than address the claim that he doesn't answer questions directly, he resorted to his familiar "young people" line.) If you know of a more effective way to get answers from him, we're all ears.

In any event, if we want to get away from the pedantry, I raised what I think is a perfectly fine point--in fact, it's not even a point but a straightforward question--on page 3 that is entirely pertinent to the thread, and which Coberst or anyone else is free to respond to.

Re: Argument is war; thus forum becomes battle ground.


I think some of these metaphors are somewhat strained. While I agree (up to a point) with the title, I think the comparison isn't always valid. For one, I can't succesfully apply it to myself. I try to understand everything said, and once I perceive the meaning and argumentation of a poster, if I feel I have something constructive to add, I'll try to supply my own opinion.
Your metaphor implies complete antagonism... In other words, simply disagreeing with a post and opposing it simply because it comes from a
poster perceived to be an opponent. In other words, I think constructive argumentation is possible (but not probable). You seem to preclude it from the getgo.



Where is the ratio here? Argumentation requires more then just 'gut feelings' As for 'correctness', a lot of that (in fora topics as well) comes from morals, which are also to a large extent formed by the examples set by parents, teachers and friends.



The ultimate consequence of this theory would be that each of us winds up with a distinctively unique set of metaphors, based on our own primary experiences. I'd like to point out that first and foremost a metaphor is a tool in language. It is meant to convey a certain image (as aptly explained by you). In order to correctly convey the image, and the relation it has to the discussed/observed phenomenon, all participants in the discussion must understand the metaphor.
This cannot be guaranteed with this definition. The way I understand certain metaphors, as related to my own life experiences, can be different from the way you experience them, or, for that matter, from anybody else. With that in mind, how can a metaphor ever be used as a tool in conveying a certain message?

Another question, how does passively fed information fit into this? I have never participated in a war, does this mean I am incapable of applying/understanding war-related metaphors? I of course have an idea of what a war would be like, which is based on multiple information streams from different sources in the course of my life.
But, all of this is going off topic a bit, I 'll grant you that.



Ehm. In your explanation, you state that the experiences from a certain perceived phenomenon B are stored in a mental state that has to a large extent been pre-formed by a similar phenomenon A, which was the first occurence of that phenomenon in my life.
Now, you state that the mental state formed by this phenomenon A (boxing, war), for some further unspecified reason also applies to a totally unrelated phenomenon C (forum posting)?



Yes and no. It is exciting if someone who is intellectually equal or (as is far more probable, in my case) superior deigns to reason with you in a forum topic. I dont think my adrenalin starts pumping though (unless we are once again using metaphors )



Not necessarily.



Being negative seems to be prevalent in all generations. There are so many possible reasons why people turn negative it is impossible to describe them in any single post. As for internet fora... Well, people are anonimous. The only way they are seen is in their posts.

By disagreeing with a poster you get more attention, and get more possibilities to formulate your own opinions, then by agreeing.
Since agreeing to a poster implies to a large extent confining yourself to the parameters set by that poster. At best, you could add(ress) some minor issues.

Last but not least, the seniors might also become more vocal in internet fora since their other options for sharing opinions become more limited.

Re: Argument is war; thus forum becomes battle ground.


Quite so. It may sound like a great thing to have everyone agree, but it's only through (at least temporary) disagreement that claims can be tested, their validity ascertained, and for any intellectual progress to be made. Characterizing that exchange as a "battle" seems rather arbitrary to me.