I second Davidâs comment: this reply doesnât abide by the Forumâs norms. (Specifically âother behavior that interferes with good discourseâ.)
Calling for someone to be removed from the community (as I think was appropriate in Philâs case) isnât the same as saying we should give the same treatment to their ideas. And thatâs what you seem to be doing when you link âmore credit than [the critiques] deserveâ to âredressing personal slightsâ and âdoesnât believe what he is sayingâ.
If you think Philâs vendetta or personal beliefs are relevant to the reasonableness of his critique, you should explain why â itâs not clear to me what the connection is.
I think his arguments fail as arguments, and would still fail as arguments even if he believed in them sincerely. If the arguments are solid, any hypothetical bad faith seems irrelevant.
Put another way, would âPhil believes thisâ be important evidence in favor of the critique? If not, why does âPhil doesnât really believe thisâ serve as important counterevidence?
Without the connection between Philâs personal life and his arguments, this comment seems like a personal attack unrelated to your point. And itâs an unfortunate contrast with your other comments, which reliably engaged with the critiques rather than the critic. (As well as a contrast with basically all the other stuff youâve written on the Forum, which is consistently backed by lots of evidence.)
I would usually agree that we should play ball and not man, but I think the critiques would be mystifying unless you knew the background on what is actually driving him to write this stuff. I think it is relevant evidence that he doesnât really believe what he is saying because eg it should influence what you should believe about how faithfully he reports what the people he criticises say. We could look into each specific claim that he makes and check how faithfully he quotes what people actually say. As it turns out, it is often not faithful and often very uncharitable. But if you know that someoneâs motives are randomly to trash people who have crossed him, that should update us about how much we should trust all of the claims they make. Itâs like ignoring the fact that a journalist has fabricated quotes when examining what they write, and instead just focusing on all of their object-level claims each time they write anything.
I agree that knowing someoneâs personal motives can help you judge the likelihood of unproven claims they make, and should make you suspicious of any chance they have to e.g. selectively quote someone. But some of the language Iâve seen used around Torres seems to imply âif he said it, we should just ignore itâ, even in cases where he actually links to sources, cites published literature, etc.
Of course, itâs much more difficult to evaluate someoneâs arguments when theyâve proven untrustworthy, so Iâd give an evaluation of Philâs claims lower priority than I would evaluations of other critics who donât share his background (all else being equal). But I donât want them to be thrown out entirely.
I think the critiques would be mystifying unless you knew the background on what is actually driving him to write this stuff.
When Phil shares this material, I often see comments (on Twitter, Aeon, etc.) from people saying things like âyes, this is also how I feelâ or âthis experience you said someone had is similar to the experience I hadâ. You could argue that these people probably have false beliefs or biases of their own, but they donât seem mystified, and they probably donât share Philâs personal background. He seems to represent a particular viewpoint/âworldview that others also hold for non-vengeful reasons.
I second Davidâs comment: this reply doesnât abide by the Forumâs norms. (Specifically âother behavior that interferes with good discourseâ.)
Calling for someone to be removed from the community (as I think was appropriate in Philâs case) isnât the same as saying we should give the same treatment to their ideas. And thatâs what you seem to be doing when you link âmore credit than [the critiques] deserveâ to âredressing personal slightsâ and âdoesnât believe what he is sayingâ.
If you think Philâs vendetta or personal beliefs are relevant to the reasonableness of his critique, you should explain why â itâs not clear to me what the connection is.
I think his arguments fail as arguments, and would still fail as arguments even if he believed in them sincerely. If the arguments are solid, any hypothetical bad faith seems irrelevant.
Put another way, would âPhil believes thisâ be important evidence in favor of the critique? If not, why does âPhil doesnât really believe thisâ serve as important counterevidence?
Without the connection between Philâs personal life and his arguments, this comment seems like a personal attack unrelated to your point. And itâs an unfortunate contrast with your other comments, which reliably engaged with the critiques rather than the critic. (As well as a contrast with basically all the other stuff youâve written on the Forum, which is consistently backed by lots of evidence.)
I would usually agree that we should play ball and not man, but I think the critiques would be mystifying unless you knew the background on what is actually driving him to write this stuff. I think it is relevant evidence that he doesnât really believe what he is saying because eg it should influence what you should believe about how faithfully he reports what the people he criticises say. We could look into each specific claim that he makes and check how faithfully he quotes what people actually say. As it turns out, it is often not faithful and often very uncharitable. But if you know that someoneâs motives are randomly to trash people who have crossed him, that should update us about how much we should trust all of the claims they make. Itâs like ignoring the fact that a journalist has fabricated quotes when examining what they write, and instead just focusing on all of their object-level claims each time they write anything.
I agree that knowing someoneâs personal motives can help you judge the likelihood of unproven claims they make, and should make you suspicious of any chance they have to e.g. selectively quote someone. But some of the language Iâve seen used around Torres seems to imply âif he said it, we should just ignore itâ, even in cases where he actually links to sources, cites published literature, etc.
Of course, itâs much more difficult to evaluate someoneâs arguments when theyâve proven untrustworthy, so Iâd give an evaluation of Philâs claims lower priority than I would evaluations of other critics who donât share his background (all else being equal). But I donât want them to be thrown out entirely.
When Phil shares this material, I often see comments (on Twitter, Aeon, etc.) from people saying things like âyes, this is also how I feelâ or âthis experience you said someone had is similar to the experience I hadâ. You could argue that these people probably have false beliefs or biases of their own, but they donât seem mystified, and they probably donât share Philâs personal background. He seems to represent a particular viewpoint/âworldview that others also hold for non-vengeful reasons.