Your narrow view of what a woman is

The argument from they exist:

Compelling.

Likewise, frimblz exist and frimblz are frimblz. Why, because frimblz exist, that’s why.

You can’t argue with that.

Comments

14 responses to “Your narrow view of what a woman is”

  1. Nullius in Verba Avatar
    Nullius in Verba

    I had a guy claim simultaneously to have a master’s in philosophy and to have no problem with circular arguments.

    So I basically did exactly what JKR did and responded with a circular argument. The conversation ended at that point

  2. Harald Hanche-Olsen Avatar

    Well, as the saying goes, you cannot argue someone out of a position they did not argue themselves into.

  3. Your Name's not Bruce? Avatar
    Your Name’s not Bruce?

    I wonder how Mr. Barot would feel under the knife of a surgeon who did not agree with his narrow view of what “anesthetized” means, or on a flight piloted by someone with a very expansive, inclusive view of the concept of “safe”? If he wants to pretend that men are women, that’s his business, but nobody else is obligated to follow his lead, nor should his strange view be made the basis of law or regulation.

  4. Mostly Cloudy Avatar
    Mostly Cloudy

    Wait a minute, is Rowling becoming a secularist? She’s mocking Creationists, and she also criticised the Bible in another post.

  5. maddog1129 Avatar

    “Why? Because tans women exist …”

    Well, it’s true that there are men who want to be women, or wish they were women, or say they are women, or claim to be women, or who dress in clothes, and other indicia that are normally socially assigned or ascribed to women. Such men exist. Yes.

    “… and trans women are women.”

    Well, no. That’s simply stating, assuming, or claiming as true the very proposition that is in issue. That remains to be proven. You haven’t demonstrated that yet. You don’t get to just assume the very thing in issue, the very thing you’re supposed to prove. Logic failure. You lose. There’s been no articulated reason to treat a subset of men as if they were women. They don’t have the defining characteristics of women. They’re not women. “Trans women are men,” is what you should say. You’re not very good at this “thinking” thing.

  6. Holms Avatar

    #1

    As Rhys McKinnon has demonstrated, philosophy seems to have become the Department of Sophistry and Essay-Writing.

  7. Ophelia Benson Avatar

    Mind you, he did get fired for it.

  8. Nullius in Verba Avatar
    Nullius in Verba

    I thought he got fired for not even bothering to do the essay writing part.

  9. Ophelia Benson Avatar

    There’s the official reason and then there’s the real reason…

  10. Colin Day Avatar

    To be pedantic, one can argue with it, in the sense of using it in an argument. One can also argue against it, in the sense of attempting to refute it. It appears that other people do not respect my prepositions in this regard.

  11. What a Maroon Avatar
    What a Maroon

    @NiV,

    I expect he got his PhD. defending Möbius arguments.

  12. Blood Knight in Sour Armor Avatar
    Blood Knight in Sour Armor

    @Mostly Cloudy #4:

    I know you shouldn’t read too much into characters authors write but given they’re both protagonists the fact that Strike is an atheist and Robin Ellicott doesn’t mention gods outside of verbal expressions can be viewed as telling. Generally though I thought UK-ians viewed godbothering as somewhat unseemly.

  13. Mostly Cloudy Avatar
    Mostly Cloudy

    Blood Knight in Sour Armor:

    Rowling said she belonged to the Scottish Episcopal Church in 2012.

    Maybe she deliberately doesn’t put her religious beliefs into her fiction (compare, say, Orson Scott Card).

    It’s also possible she’s trying to bait the gender self-identification crowd by comparing them to Christian fundies.

  14. iknklast Avatar

    Mostly Cloudy, it is also possible that belonging to a church and not believing in god are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps she “belongs” to the church but doesn’t give it much of her “belief”. I’ve known quite a few people who belong to a church worshiping a god they don’t believe in.