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To: GOPcapitalist
"... that authority is NOT a credentialed and recognized expert and/or that authority espouses an unconventional view that goes against the overwhelming scholarly position on the same subject ..."

I take it you still haven't been able to figure out Jaffa's Phd. Your argument with respect to Jaffa fails because he is a recognized "expert" who has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and published several text books on those subjects. That Jaffa espouses some unconventional or archaic views in no way invalidates his observations. That is the purpose of academic discussion and debate. Your usual reply is that Jaffa is a "wacko" or a "kook" or some other epithet. In doing so, you are not discussing the contention, but rather, making an attack on Jaffa's character or associations. That is the textbook definition of an ad hominem attack.

You can put your Debater's Guide away now; it's not doing you any good.

487 posted on 09/01/2004 12:39:59 AM PDT by capitan_refugio
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To: capitan_refugio
I take it you still haven't been able to figure out Jaffa's Phd.

He sure doesn't advertise it anywhere!

Your argument with respect to Jaffa fails because he is a recognized "expert" who has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and published several text books on those subjects.

Nope. He's had one single acclaimed book on Lincoln almost fifty years ago. He's authored plenty since then to be sure but virtually all of it has bombed, including his latest Lincoln material. His constitutional and philosophical theories lack any substantial academic following beyond his own think tank at Claremont, and most scholars consider them unconventional outsider theories to the academic mainstream.

That Jaffa espouses some unconventional or archaic views in no way invalidates his observations.

No, but it does inhibit you from making an argumentum ad verecundiam upon his name because, for an appeal to expertise to be logically valid, that expert must be credentialed and within agreement of his field's mainstream. For example, if I said "you should take an antibiotic to fight off that infection because Dr. Smith says so" my appeal to Dr. Smith's authority would probably be valid since he is both credentialed and offering agreed upon advice within the academic mainstream of his field. However, if I were to say "you can go SCUBA diving to 120 feet and surface directly on a buoyant assent without getting the bends because Dr. Smith said so" my argument would be fallacious because a universally accepted current medical position holds otherwise and most likely Dr. Smith is not a SCUBA instructor.

Same goes for Jaffa. If you want to make an appeal to his authority - a fallacy in its own right - you better make sure that he is both credentialed in the field of your appeal and within agreement with the academic mainstream of that field. In both cases he simply is not.

501 posted on 09/01/2004 9:52:42 AM PDT by GOPcapitalist ("Can Lincoln expect to subjugate a people thus resolved? No!" - Sam Houston, 3/1863)
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To: capitan_refugio; GOPcapitalist
[cr] Your argument with respect to Jaffa fails because he is a recognized "expert" who has authored numerous peer-reviewed articles and published several text books on those subjects.

Harry Jaffa acknowledged that he is "probably the only living soul who has written on original intent who agrees with [his] central thesis."

When the central thesis of what he publishes is, by his own admission, universally rejected, he does not become a recognized "expert" due to volume or persistence.

514 posted on 09/01/2004 11:10:29 AM PDT by nolu chan
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