Holmes is revered as a quasi-deity among most legal academics, and while I think he’s entitled to far less respect than he generally receives, I’ve always appreciated this sentiment. Basically, “the simplicity on the other side of complexity” is the lawyer’s way of stating “it all adds up to normality.”
So, the simplicity on this side of complexity would be something like naive free will theory—basically, “it feels like I have free will, so something magic must happen that gives me true power to choose.” If you reject this simplicity, but don’t make it to the other side of complexity, you might end up saying silly things like “free will doesn’t exist, so all of our choices are meaningless—everything is determined for us.” You need to work your way through the complexity to reach the simplicity that says “yeah, the experience of making decisions is real, and that’s what matters—this is just a normal part of physics, not something magic.” Sometimes, simple truths really are correct—but you need to work through a bit of complexity to understand why that’s the case.
Simplicity on this side of complexity: rainbows are real and awesome!
Stuck in complexity: everything is just quarks, your model of “rainbows” is a mere product of your own mind, beauty doesn’t really exist in nature, get over yourself.
Simplicity on the other side of complexity: rainbows are explained in reductionism, but not explained away; yes, my model of a rainbow is “just” a model, but that doesn’t mean rainbows aren’t “real”; you can think a rainbow really, truly is beautiful, and still believe in reductionism.
Where’s the ad hominem? He’s not using the badness of the man to attack the statement. He is noting that even though he thinks the man is bad, the statement is respectable (with his exegesis).
Humans are bad at correctly dealing with affect-laden sentiments. It’s bad practice even to mention a status-valuation of a person in a context nearby to a discussion of the merits of something that person said.
That is, it doesn’t actually matter all that much that
He’s not using the badness of the man to attack the statement.
It’s enough that he mentioned the badness of the man before discussing the statement.
There would of course be no problem if the participants in the discussion were intelligent, rather than human.
-1 for ad hominem. Especially bad if the accusations against his character are true.
Misleading usage of the ad hominem concept. If your objection is “the parent said something that lowers the status of another” then you may consider instead claiming ‘offensive’ or ‘rude’. (I would disagree with either of those charges too but it would be a matter of subjective preference and not one of abstract understanding.)
Holmes is revered as a quasi-deity among most legal academics, and while I think he’s entitled to far less respect than he generally receives, I’ve always appreciated this sentiment. Basically, “the simplicity on the other side of complexity” is the lawyer’s way of stating “it all adds up to normality.”
So, the simplicity on this side of complexity would be something like naive free will theory—basically, “it feels like I have free will, so something magic must happen that gives me true power to choose.” If you reject this simplicity, but don’t make it to the other side of complexity, you might end up saying silly things like “free will doesn’t exist, so all of our choices are meaningless—everything is determined for us.” You need to work your way through the complexity to reach the simplicity that says “yeah, the experience of making decisions is real, and that’s what matters—this is just a normal part of physics, not something magic.” Sometimes, simple truths really are correct—but you need to work through a bit of complexity to understand why that’s the case.
Another good example with regard to reductionism:
Simplicity on this side of complexity: rainbows are real and awesome!
Stuck in complexity: everything is just quarks, your model of “rainbows” is a mere product of your own mind, beauty doesn’t really exist in nature, get over yourself.
Simplicity on the other side of complexity: rainbows are explained in reductionism, but not explained away; yes, my model of a rainbow is “just” a model, but that doesn’t mean rainbows aren’t “real”; you can think a rainbow really, truly is beautiful, and still believe in reductionism.
-1 for shifgrethor contagion. Especially bad if the accusations against his character are true.
Where’s the ad hominem? He’s not using the badness of the man to attack the statement. He is noting that even though he thinks the man is bad, the statement is respectable (with his exegesis).
Humans are bad at correctly dealing with affect-laden sentiments. It’s bad practice even to mention a status-valuation of a person in a context nearby to a discussion of the merits of something that person said.
That is, it doesn’t actually matter all that much that
It’s enough that he mentioned the badness of the man before discussing the statement.
There would of course be no problem if the participants in the discussion were intelligent, rather than human.
Misleading usage of the ad hominem concept. If your objection is “the parent said something that lowers the status of another” then you may consider instead claiming ‘offensive’ or ‘rude’. (I would disagree with either of those charges too but it would be a matter of subjective preference and not one of abstract understanding.)
Yes, that’s correct. Edited.