Sophistry, Sophistication, and Integrity (split from How Old Am I, etc)

[Gees]

OK. No offense, but this is an unsophisticated position to take.

 

Well I am taking offense. The first casualty of sophistication is integrity -- always. When there is no integrity, there is no truth. No philosopher worth his/her salt would advocate a position of sophistry.

 

Gee

[Phi for All]

Well I am taking offense. The first casualty of sophistication is integrity -- always. When there is no integrity, there is no truth. No philosopher worth his/her salt would advocate a position of sophistry.

 

Is your offense related to the integrity you give up when you take a sentence out of context? I agree that integrity is one of the paramount virtues, but I don't believe in truth the way you paint it.

 

I thought I made it quite clear (in the bit you snipped) that assigning equal value to all things was my objection to the idea presented. And it is ironic that you've used a strawman fallacy in the same post where you admonish me for advocating sophistry.

 

But let's talk about this sentence:

 

The first casualty of sophistication is integrity -- always.

More irony, as I assume sophistication is something you're shunning as a threat to your integrity, and yet a lack of sophistication is allowing you to make a blanket assertion like this that's trivially false. You're basically saying that EVERYONE who is sophisticated gave up their integrity first.

 

Please consider my preceding thoughts.