Jan Steinman wrote:
> ...you're almost as good as Moose at "reductio ad absurdum,"
> taking what someone says and twisting it into something totally
> unrecognizable to make them look bad.
>
Reductio ad absurdum, Latin for "reduction to the absurd", traceable
back to the Greek ......, "reduction to the impossible", often used by
Aristotle, also known as an apagogical argument, reductio ad
impossibile, or proof by contradiction, is a type of logical argument
where one assumes a claim for the sake of argument, derives an absurd or
ridiculous outcome, and then concludes that the original assumption must
have been wrong, as it led to an absurd result. It makes use of the law
of non-contradiction - a statement cannot be both true and false.
Doesn't seem to agree with your definition "..taking what someone says
and twisting it into something totally unrecognizable to make them look
bad."
As a matter of fact, Reductio ad absurdum, as defined in the above
quote, does sound much like what I intended to do in evaluating a couple
of the tag quotes you posted. They seemed to me to be based on
demonstrably faulty assumptions and to lead to logical conclusions at
odds with their apparent intent. To that extent, I did want to make the
authors "look bad", if one wishes to put such an emotional twist to
logical analysis of public statements.
To the extent that you may feel that, by looking deeper into quotes you
chose to post, I took something you said or endorsed and twisted it into
something unrecognizable to make you look bad, I wish to deeply
apologize. I had taken the postings as in invitation to discussion, but
will cease to do so.
I wish for a world with many fewer humans living on it in a sustainable,
harmonious relationship with the rest of the natural world and each
other. I suspect that issomething like what you wish for too. Our
beliefs about how to get there differ. I hope we can agree to agree
about hopes and amicably disagree about means. If not, then the goal is
even further off.
I happen to believe that any movement that tries to make progress
through empty sound bites and insupportable sloganeering is going to
fail - and I don't want the movement towards a healthy, happy and
peaceful world to fail.
> I don't think it reflects well on either one of you.
Nor does twisting a famous philosophical concept into "something totally
unrecognizable" to make others "look bad" reflect well on you.
Moose
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