“So if you are ever willing to reopen discussion on the basis of substantive argument rather than an unending stream of personal attack”
Why would I want to discuss anything with a liar?
I have posted no stream of personal attack, unending or otherwise.
No lie. Anyone reading this sees your attacks for what they are. No one post that did not involve one form or another of ad hominem, and even now it continues, with a false accusation of lying. Suit yourself. You make my case for me. I wish it were not so. But the door remains open. It’s up to you.
Peace,
SR
Two necessary clarifications:
First, in my last post to you, I spoke as if all your posts to me contained personal attacks. However, after I had cooled down from your latest attack, I went back and found a single early post to me that had no trace of personal attack (though I still maintain the rest do). This was an honest error, made in haste and upset, but an error nonetheless. It was honest because I sincerely believed it at the time, but it was still incorrect, and so I apologize for the error.
Second, I begin to see I could be making more accurate use of the term “ad hominem.” In internet forums it is commonplace to use the term as a simple synonym for “personal attack,” which is not correct, and I have unfortunately fallen into the habit of doing precisely that. Perhaps this offering from Schopenhauer’s “The Art of Controversy” could be used as an alternative:
“A last trick is to become personal, insulting, rude, as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand, and that you are going to come off worst. It consists in passing from the subject of dispute, as from a lost game, to the disputant himself, and in some way attacking his person. It may be called the argumentum ad personam, to distinguish it from the argumentum ad hominem, which passes from the objective discussion of the subject pure and simple to the statements or admissions which your opponent has made in regard to it. But in becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack to his person, by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character. It is an appeal from the virtues of the intellect to the virtues of the body, or to mere animalism. This is a very popular trick, because every one is able to carry it into effect; and so it is of frequent application.”
Available at: http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/controversy/complete.html
Caveat: I do not endorse Schopenhauer’s philosophy, as he tended toward Buddhism. But I do think this particular quote expresses the current situation quite accurately, and if I can mend my habits, I will henceforth try to refer to unanchored personal attacks in this form: Argumentum Ad Personam.