S
ome rhetorical devices come at a cost.
A recent series of guest posts aroused the intellectual irritation of Eric Holloway, a sometimes voice on Eidos. Dr. Eric Holloway has a great texts degree, a MSc in Computer Science at the Air Force Institute of Technology and a PhD in Computer Engineering at Baylor University.
He felt the guest poster has fallen into several bad arguments. He labels the lot of them argumentum ad snobbinem. With his usual wit, Dr. Holloway makes his case and we all will be better off heeding his advice.
Mr. Holloway:
I have engaged in numerous internet debates and a fair number of
academic discussions. I am always interested to have my views
challenged, but I ask one thing. That the challenge be intelligible,
so I can evaluate what the problem is with my own view, and learn
something new.
What sort of challenge is not intelligible? Snobbery.
What do I mean by snobbery? It is an appeal to authority, but with
the addition of condescension. The condescension hides the appeal to
authority, but an appeal it is nonetheless. Appeals to authority are
the least meaningful pieces of evidence, since they beg the question
whether the supposed authority is authoritative.
I see snobbery employed repeatedly to ‘refute’ a view. Snobbery comes
in three main categories: scientism, popularity, and chronological.
Now for some examples of these snobbery categories that I’ve encountered.
My field of expertise is computer science, and I am particularly
interested in whether artificial intelligence is possible. Not merely
practically possible, but whether the concept of artificial
intelligence is even logically possible.
The immediate reaction I tend to get to such a question is the
scientism snobbery. Due to scientific theory X, the human mind must
be some sort of meat computer. Hence, artificial intelligence must of
necessity be true.
Of course, then we must ask, why should we believe X, and why should
we believe this implies the mind is meat?
Next, I might introduce substance dualism. At this point the response
is popularity snobbery.
Substance dualism is apparently the least popular idea in the history
of philosophy, so there is no way it can be true. No self respecting
philosopher even considers such an idea. Except, for most
philosophers throughout history, such as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas,
Descartes, etc.
Then comes the final snobbery: historical snobbery.
Everyone knows those old philosophers may have had good ideas back in
the day, at least better than the villagers worshiping the sun, but
philosophy progresses and those old guys have outdated ideas. So, the
fact they found substance dualism convincing is only because they
don’t know all the scientific facts we know today.
And herein lies the crux of snobbery’s problem: what exactly are the
facts and theories that have soundly refuted substance dualism and the
like?
As far as I can tell, there are none. There are handwavy references
to evolution, naturalism and scientific progress, but nothing
concrete. Snobbery is merely an intellectual fashion victim, without
anything solid to support its air of confidence.
So, I propose that we immediately dispense with any such snobbery, on
both sides of the debate. Go straight to the specific claims and
arguments that refute a position. And if there is nothing solid
there, we must be willing to consider we might be wrong. I believe
such an attitude is one everyone can agree on.
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