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I see no evidence to the contrary, either. As long as we're drawing conclusions about the author's personality and intentions, why not be charitable? Otherwis
by jfarmer 13y ago
I see no evidence to the contrary, either. As long as we're drawing conclusions about the author's personality and intentions, why not be charitable?
Otherwise, we should just keep our commentary to the argument as written rather than what's going on in the author's head.
- rhizome 13y agoI see no evidence to the contrary Which would be proving a negative. Charitability has nothing to do with an effective argument, which depends on actual words engaging the actual subject at hand. If you have to clarify by saying "I was only talking about some people," it wasn't an effective argument, because you left out the entire scope of the subject you're describing.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- jfarmer 13y agoYeah, on second thought, you're right. The author is probably just a dick. Screw him.
- rhizome 13y agoRight, because the only two options are to accept his argument or think he's a dick.
- jfarmer 13y agoI was responding to the original commenter's claim that Richard was a sociopath by painting a plausible alternative. I was not trying to muster a case for that alternative, except to point out one would just as justified in jumping to my "effective argument" conclusion as one would be in jumping to the "sociopath" conclusion. And, hey, as long as we're jumping to conclusions, why not give the author the benefit of the doubt? If you misunderstood what I was doing, well, c'est la vie. I'm not actually interested in convincing you so much as not having a friend of mine called a sociopath in public without sticking up for him. ;)