Split Is Fetterman's aphasia relevant to his being a Senator?

[Metaphor]

I’m trying to work this out. Is “epistemological privilege“ intended as a pejorative characterization of the idea that a doctor can know more about the health of his patient than some rando on the internet? Or what?

I did not say Fetterman's doctor did not know more about Fetterman than I do. If you think I made that claim, show your receipts.

Epistemological privilege is a term I've used (I came up with it independently, I believe, but I might have heard it somewhere) to describe the behaviour where people attempt to shut down somebody's assertions through mere statement of their own superior position in attaining knowledge. An example:
* You are a man trying to explain to a woman what mansplaining is *

This is a claim of epistemological privilege, that no man has the right to make any kind of assertion about the meaning of the word 'mansplain', and therefore no arguments need to be addressed or even considered. As if the meanings of words is not a matter of reason or evidence.

Claims to epistemological privilege is rampant amongst progressives, in my experience.

Ha ha, OK chief. “Epistemological privilege” is pretty good, though. I’m going to borrow it for a novel I’m currently writing. Maybe I’ll even make you a character in it.

How flattering.

 

[RVonse]

It is not an ad-hominem to speculate ideological bias as the reason several board members are resisting eye-bleedingly obvious statements, like that processing speech is an important part of a Senator's job.

If you are attacking someone's motives,

I didn't attack motives or try to base on arguments on the motives of posters. I am trying to find a reason to understand how people can hold such unreasonable positions, like that the ability to process speech is irrelevant to the job of a Senator.

then you are making an ad hominem attack. That is just what the expression "ad hominem" means. All I did was point out that you yourself are vulnerable to the same attack. You already know that ad hominem attacks are fallacious and irrelevant to this argument,

I didn't make any arguments based on the character of the posters. I made an expression of despair at the state of the board. I am allowed to have feelings.

so I shouldn't need to point it out to you.

I also see you changed your words in your penultimate sentence, from processing speech to processing 'language'. I have very carefully said Fetterman has speech (that is, verbal rather than written) processing issues. This is something he and his own camp have said and admitted to. That is why he asked for closed captioning in his tv interview and his debate.

There is no significance to the use of "language" instead of "speech". You are talking about a linguistic impairment and implying that his disability would somehow render him unfit for his job.

No: you see, you are once again mischaracterising what I have said. I did not say he was unfit for the job. You have mischaracterised my expressed views on this once already. Stop saying I said it. Stop.

I agreed with you that it was relevant, but disagreed that it was as serious as you have made it out to be. That he asked for closed captioning supports my contention that his speech/language/linguistic processing was relatively insignificant regarding his fitness for office, given the circumstances. It only showed that he was at a serious disadvantage in a TV debate, because he is not yet fully recovered from the damage caused by his stroke. He could obviously process written English better than spoken English. That is quite common in people who have suffered light or moderate strokes. The prognosis for a full recovery at his age is usually good.

I did not make any speculations about his prognosis, though I see ZiprHead has chosen not to ask you where you got your medical degree and when did you examine Fetterman.

I made a single claim: that speech processing difficulties was hardly irrelevant to the job of a Senator. Responses to that claim have included:
* Go fuck yourself, ableist
* People's cognitive deficits can improve after a stroke (a claim seemingly offered as counterevidence, as if I'd made the claim Fetterman could not experience improvement)
* It's not a 'cognitive deficit', which, even if that were true (it's not) makes no difference whatever to my claim, which is that processing real-time speech is not irrelevant to the job of a Senator
* That the deficit can be accommodated or mitigated, which is a separate question
* That I was not Fetterman's doctor, and therefore...I apparently don't understand what the words 'cognitive deficit' could mean.

Do you have any idea what it's like to make an eye-bleedingly obvious statement and then have half the board resist that statement and ascribe motives and positions to you manufactured from whole cloth?

Yes, and that does not describe the treatment I have given your post. I am not here to defend comments made by others, nor do I endorse your characterization of the extent of your victimhood. People here have disagreed with the way you have framed Fetterman's linguistic difficulties, and I am one of those people.

Your characterisation of my views is also false, as I have pointed out above and before.

If you don't think they are serious, then why all the fuss you are making about them?

Of course his problem is serious. It's a serious problem to have difficulties processing speech.

They didn't vote for him for his speech and/or conversation ability they voted him, his platform, and his ideology.

I have to respect that because there are many on the other side who voted for Trump even though they knew well about his serious personal and character flaws. Would you rather hire a lawyer who can't talk right who will fight like hell for you in the trial room...or the other polished guy who really could give a shit if you lose the case?

Ideology and platform trumps everything as it should.

 

[Metaphor]

It is not an ad-hominem to speculate ideological bias as the reason several board members are resisting eye-bleedingly obvious statements, like that processing speech is an important part of a Senator's job.

If you are attacking someone's motives,

I didn't attack motives or try to base on arguments on the motives of posters. I am trying to find a reason to understand how people can hold such unreasonable positions, like that the ability to process speech is irrelevant to the job of a Senator.

then you are making an ad hominem attack. That is just what the expression "ad hominem" means. All I did was point out that you yourself are vulnerable to the same attack. You already know that ad hominem attacks are fallacious and irrelevant to this argument,

I didn't make any arguments based on the character of the posters. I made an expression of despair at the state of the board. I am allowed to have feelings.

so I shouldn't need to point it out to you.

I also see you changed your words in your penultimate sentence, from processing speech to processing 'language'. I have very carefully said Fetterman has speech (that is, verbal rather than written) processing issues. This is something he and his own camp have said and admitted to. That is why he asked for closed captioning in his tv interview and his debate.

There is no significance to the use of "language" instead of "speech". You are talking about a linguistic impairment and implying that his disability would somehow render him unfit for his job.

No: you see, you are once again mischaracterising what I have said. I did not say he was unfit for the job. You have mischaracterised my expressed views on this once already. Stop saying I said it. Stop.

I agreed with you that it was relevant, but disagreed that it was as serious as you have made it out to be. That he asked for closed captioning supports my contention that his speech/language/linguistic processing was relatively insignificant regarding his fitness for office, given the circumstances. It only showed that he was at a serious disadvantage in a TV debate, because he is not yet fully recovered from the damage caused by his stroke. He could obviously process written English better than spoken English. That is quite common in people who have suffered light or moderate strokes. The prognosis for a full recovery at his age is usually good.

I did not make any speculations about his prognosis, though I see ZiprHead has chosen not to ask you where you got your medical degree and when did you examine Fetterman.

I made a single claim: that speech processing difficulties was hardly irrelevant to the job of a Senator. Responses to that claim have included:
* Go fuck yourself, ableist
* People's cognitive deficits can improve after a stroke (a claim seemingly offered as counterevidence, as if I'd made the claim Fetterman could not experience improvement)
* It's not a 'cognitive deficit', which, even if that were true (it's not) makes no difference whatever to my claim, which is that processing real-time speech is not irrelevant to the job of a Senator
* That the deficit can be accommodated or mitigated, which is a separate question
* That I was not Fetterman's doctor, and therefore...I apparently don't understand what the words 'cognitive deficit' could mean.

Do you have any idea what it's like to make an eye-bleedingly obvious statement and then have half the board resist that statement and ascribe motives and positions to you manufactured from whole cloth?

Yes, and that does not describe the treatment I have given your post. I am not here to defend comments made by others, nor do I endorse your characterization of the extent of your victimhood. People here have disagreed with the way you have framed Fetterman's linguistic difficulties, and I am one of those people.

Your characterisation of my views is also false, as I have pointed out above and before.

If you don't think they are serious, then why all the fuss you are making about them?

Of course his problem is serious. It's a serious problem to have difficulties processing speech.

They didn't vote for him for his speech and/or conversation ability

I did not say they did. I also was not talking about his speech or "conversational ability", but his ability to process the speech of others.

they voted him, his platform, and his ideology.

I do not doubt it.

I have to respect that because there are many on the other side who voted for Trump even though they knew well about his serious personal and character flaws. Would you rather hire a lawyer who can't talk right who will fight like hell for you in the trial room...or the other polished guy who really could give a shit if you lose the case?

Now, that's an interesting question, and I don't know the answer, but I am not saying it was somehow wrong for people to have voted for Fetterman.

All I said was that processing speech is an important, rather than 'irrelevant', task for a Senator.

 

[ZiprHead]

I’m trying to work this out. Is “epistemological privilege“ intended as a pejorative characterization of the idea that a doctor can know more about the health of his patient than some rando on the internet? Or what?

I did not say Fetterman's doctor did not know more about Fetterman than I do. If you think I made that claim, show your receipts.

Epistemological privilege is a term I've used (I came up with it independently, I believe, but I might have heard it somewhere) to describe the behaviour where people attempt to shut down somebody's assertions through mere statement of their own superior position in attaining knowledge. An example:
* You are a man trying to explain to a woman what mansplaining is *

This is a claim of epistemological privilege, that no man has the right to make any kind of assertion about the meaning of the word 'mansplain', and therefore no arguments need to be addressed or even considered. As if the meanings of words is not a matter of reason or evidence.

Claims to epistemological privilege is rampant amongst progressives, in my experience.

Ha ha, OK chief. “Epistemological privilege” is pretty good, though. I’m going to borrow it for a novel I’m currently writing. Maybe I’ll even make you a character in it.

Please don't. No one would take the character seriously.

 

[pood]

But Fetterman has said he needs captioning to follow conversations, even with a single questioner (e.g. when he was interviewed). And, he needs things written down because of his cognitive/processing deficits, not a sensory deficit. Sometimes cognitive deficits are very narrow and specific, but often they are general. Whatever the deficit is that is causing him difficulty in processing speech might also cause other problems.

You.

Me....what?

“Me” as in, “You” said the part I quoted.

No, I didn't. You falsely claimed that I said

...he had a deficit in his ability to think and reason?

Which I did not say. What I said was

Whatever the deficit is that is causing him difficulty in processing speech might also cause other problems.

You cannot square your false accusation with what I wrote. "Other problems" is not "think and reason". If I meant "think and reason", I'd have said "think and reason". And if I meant to say he had other problems, I'd have said he had them, instead of allowing the possibility.

You plainly said in the quoted bit that he has a cognitive deficit. His doctor says that he does not. I’ll go with what his doctor says — i.e., I’ll epistemologically privilege him, lol — over you any day on this matter.

 

[pood]

Please note that the word “cognition” MEANS “thinking and reasoning.” So you cannot claim that he has a ”cognitive” deficit while at the same time maintaining that you were not referring to thinking and reasoning. If you attempt to so maintain, then either you are ignorant of the meaning of “cognition” or you are, to put it charitably, being disingenuous. I would not put it so charitably myself.

 

[laughing dog]

If that is true, then there is no real issue. If that is untrue, it is easily dealt with if Mr. Fetterman has an aide with him to help him understand what is said in conversations.

An aide can't provide real-time subtitles for him. But even if she could, she'd be providing them because Fetterman has a cognitive deficit in processing speech.

Nevertheless, the idea that processing speech is not important for a Senator is still a ludicrous idea.

Only to the epistemologicallly impaired. BTW, there is no evidence Mr. Fetterman has a cognitive deficit in processing speech but auditory speech issues. Apparently he is still improving after his stroke. Who knows how fit he will be in January.

In any event, clearly Mr. Fetterman and the voters of Pennslyvannia believe your position is ludicrous.

There is no real need for any Senator to follow debates in the Senate. Those are almost always choreographed for the public.

Is there a need for a Senator to process the speech of people talking to him?

Maybe, maybe not.

And, once you realize that a minimum of 80% of what is said out loud by every Senator is utter bullshit, maybe being slow in processing speech is not a handicap but an advantage.

He isn't "slow" in processing speech. He has a speech processing deficit. During his debate and tv interview, he asked for and got captions for everything that was said.

Thank you for pettifogging in order to miss the point.

 

[Metaphor]

But Fetterman has said he needs captioning to follow conversations, even with a single questioner (e.g. when he was interviewed). And, he needs things written down because of his cognitive/processing deficits, not a sensory deficit. Sometimes cognitive deficits are very narrow and specific, but often they are general. Whatever the deficit is that is causing him difficulty in processing speech might also cause other problems.

You.

Me....what?

“Me” as in, “You” said the part I quoted.

No, I didn't. You falsely claimed that I said

...he had a deficit in his ability to think and reason?

Which I did not say. What I said was

Whatever the deficit is that is causing him difficulty in processing speech might also cause other problems.

You cannot square your false accusation with what I wrote. "Other problems" is not "think and reason". If I meant "think and reason", I'd have said "think and reason". And if I meant to say he had other problems, I'd have said he had them, instead of allowing the possibility.

You plainly said in the quoted bit that he has a cognitive deficit.

I said he had a speech processing deficit , which I characterised as a cognitive deficit as opposed to a sensory one.

His doctor does not deny he has a speech processing deficit.

His doctor says that he does not. I’ll go with what his doctor says — i.e., I’ll epistemologically privilege him, lol — over you any day on this matter.

You can do as you wish. If you believe that Fetterman does not have a speech processing defecit - something Fetterman has himself admitted to and sought accommodation for, I cannot help you.

 

[Metaphor]

If that is true, then there is no real issue. If that is untrue, it is easily dealt with if Mr. Fetterman has an aide with him to help him understand what is said in conversations.

An aide can't provide real-time subtitles for him. But even if she could, she'd be providing them because Fetterman has a cognitive deficit in processing speech.

Nevertheless, the idea that processing speech is not important for a Senator is still a ludicrous idea.

Only to the epistemologicallly impaired. BTW, there is no evidence Mr. Fetterman has a cognitive deficit in processing speech but auditory speech issues.

The problem is in his brain. If you think the problem is located elsewhere, let me know.

Apparently he is still improving after his stroke. Who knows how fit he will be in January.

In any event, clearly Mr. Fetterman and the voters of Pennslyvannia believe your position is ludicrous.

If the people of Pennsylvania think that it is irrelevant whether listening to and understanding speech is an important skill for a Senator, then god help them.

There is no real need for any Senator to follow debates in the Senate. Those are almost always choreographed for the public.

Is there a need for a Senator to process the speech of people talking to him?

Maybe, maybe not.

Okay. I think we can end it here.

 

[Metaphor]

I’m trying to work this out. Is “epistemological privilege“ intended as a pejorative characterization of the idea that a doctor can know more about the health of his patient than some rando on the internet? Or what?

I did not say Fetterman's doctor did not know more about Fetterman than I do. If you think I made that claim, show your receipts.

Epistemological privilege is a term I've used (I came up with it independently, I believe, but I might have heard it somewhere) to describe the behaviour where people attempt to shut down somebody's assertions through mere statement of their own superior position in attaining knowledge. An example:
* You are a man trying to explain to a woman what mansplaining is *

This is a claim of epistemological privilege, that no man has the right to make any kind of assertion about the meaning of the word 'mansplain', and therefore no arguments need to be addressed or even considered. As if the meanings of words is not a matter of reason or evidence.

Claims to epistemological privilege is rampant amongst progressives, in my experience.

Ha ha, OK chief. “Epistemological privilege” is pretty good, though. I’m going to borrow it for a novel I’m currently writing. Maybe I’ll even make you a character in it.

Please don't. No one would take the character seriously.

How kind.

 

[Shadowy Man]

If the people of Pennsylvania think that it is irrelevant whether listening to and understanding speech is an important skill for a Senator, then god help them.

This is a strawman argument. Just because people voted for him doesn’t mean they think it is irrelevant. People have nuanced views on why they vote and people of all political persuasions vote all the time for candidates they might think have relevant deficiencies.

 

[Metaphor]

If the people of Pennsylvania think that it is irrelevant whether listening to and understanding speech is an important skill for a Senator, then god help them.

This is a strawman argument.

No. laughing dog said the people of Pennsylvania would find my position 'ludicrous'. It is my position that it is not irrelevant to be able to process and understand speech.

Just because people voted for him doesn’t mean they think it is irrelevant. People have nuanced views on why they vote and people of all political persuasions vote all the time for candidates they might think have relevant deficiencies.

This started because blastula made a claim that Fetterman's speech processing deficits were 'irrelevant' to the job.

I did not say people should not vote for Fetterman.
I did not say Fetterman was incapable of being a Senator.
I did not say Oz would be a better Senator.
I did not say accommodations were not possible for Fetterman.

I made a claim that being able to process and understand speech was not an irrelevant ability for a Senator. And now I discover that some people - like laughing dog - think even that statement might be a bridge too far.

 

[Rhea]

This started because blastula made a claim that Fetterman's speech processing deficits were 'irrelevant' to the job.

…. Because…

The accommodations will enable him to do the job despite the processing deficits.

Just as if he were deaf and needed accomodations to get speeches rendered into print. Or if he were arranging accommodations for ADHD or stuttering. Or if he arranged accommodations to enter a chamber with stairs despite needing a wheelchair.

The current (likely temporary, already improving) processing deficits are irrelevant to the job that starts two months from now because the accommodations will enable his full participation for the duration of the time the deficit even exists.

This was perfectly clear in the original statement of it.

 

[Metaphor]

This started because blastula made a claim that Fetterman's speech processing deficits were 'irrelevant' to the job.

…. Because…

The accommodations will enable him to do the job despite the processing deficits.

Just as if he were deaf and needed accomodations to get speeches rendered into print. Or if he were arranging accommodations for ADHD or stuttering. Or if he arranged accommodations to enter a chamber with stairs despite needing a wheelchair.

The current (likely temporary, already improving) processing deficits are irrelevant to the job that starts two months from now because the accommodations will enable his full participation for the duration of the time the deficit even exists.

This was perfectly clear in the original statement of it.

It was not 'perfectly clear'.

If blastula had instead written 'his speech processing deficits can and will be fully mitigated via accommodations when he is Senator', then that would have been 'perfectly clear'.

But blastula didn't write that. He just said the disability was irrelevant. And here we are.

 

[Metaphor]

I can't read blastula's mind.

And I'll remind my ideological opponents: you can't read my mind, either.

 

[Shadowy Man]

If the people of Pennsylvania think that it is irrelevant whether listening to and understanding speech is an important skill for a Senator, then god help them.

This is a strawman argument.

No. laughing dog said the people of Pennsylvania would find my position 'ludicrous'. It is my position that it is not irrelevant to be able to process and understand speech.

Just because people voted for him doesn’t mean they think it is irrelevant. People have nuanced views on why they vote and people of all political persuasions vote all the time for candidates they might think have relevant deficiencies.

This started because blastula made a claim that Fetterman's speech processing deficits were 'irrelevant' to the job.

I did not say people should not vote for Fetterman.
I did not say Fetterman was incapable of being a Senator.
I did not say Oz would be a better Senator.
I did not say accommodations were not possible for Fetterman.

I made a claim that being able to process and understand speech was not an irrelevant ability for a Senator. And now I discover that some people - like laughing dog - think even that statement might be a bridge too far.

Sure. But you went from blastula to “the people of Pennsylvania”. That’s the strawman.

 

[Metaphor]

If the people of Pennsylvania think that it is irrelevant whether listening to and understanding speech is an important skill for a Senator, then god help them.

This is a strawman argument.

No. laughing dog said the people of Pennsylvania would find my position 'ludicrous'. It is my position that it is not irrelevant to be able to process and understand speech.

Just because people voted for him doesn’t mean they think it is irrelevant. People have nuanced views on why they vote and people of all political persuasions vote all the time for candidates they might think have relevant deficiencies.

This started because blastula made a claim that Fetterman's speech processing deficits were 'irrelevant' to the job.

I did not say people should not vote for Fetterman.
I did not say Fetterman was incapable of being a Senator.
I did not say Oz would be a better Senator.
I did not say accommodations were not possible for Fetterman.

I made a claim that being able to process and understand speech was not an irrelevant ability for a Senator. And now I discover that some people - like laughing dog - think even that statement might be a bridge too far.

Sure. But you went from blastula to “the people of Pennsylvania”. That’s the strawman.

No, laughing dog did that.

 

[Shadowy Man]

If the people of Pennsylvania think that it is irrelevant whether listening to and understanding speech is an important skill for a Senator, then god help them.

This is a strawman argument.

No. laughing dog said the people of Pennsylvania would find my position 'ludicrous'. It is my position that it is not irrelevant to be able to process and understand speech.

Just because people voted for him doesn’t mean they think it is irrelevant. People have nuanced views on why they vote and people of all political persuasions vote all the time for candidates they might think have relevant deficiencies.

This started because blastula made a claim that Fetterman's speech processing deficits were 'irrelevant' to the job.

I did not say people should not vote for Fetterman.
I did not say Fetterman was incapable of being a Senator.
I did not say Oz would be a better Senator.
I did not say accommodations were not possible for Fetterman.

I made a claim that being able to process and understand speech was not an irrelevant ability for a Senator. And now I discover that some people - like laughing dog - think even that statement might be a bridge too far.

Sure. But you went from blastula to “the people of Pennsylvania”. That’s the strawman.

No, laughing dog did that.

Perhaps so… I haven’t been able to follow every post here. And I usually start to tune out when threads devolve into posters just arguing at each other.

 

[ZiprHead]

This started because blastula made a claim that Fetterman's speech processing deficits were 'irrelevant' to the job.

…. Because…

The accommodations will enable him to do the job despite the processing deficits.

Just as if he were deaf and needed accomodations to get speeches rendered into print. Or if he were arranging accommodations for ADHD or stuttering. Or if he arranged accommodations to enter a chamber with stairs despite needing a wheelchair.

The current (likely temporary, already improving) processing deficits are irrelevant to the job that starts two months from now because the accommodations will enable his full participation for the duration of the time the deficit even exists.

This was perfectly clear in the original statement of it.

Or like at the United Nations when a speaker is speaking a language most in attndence don't know. They use real time translators.

 

[Copernicus]

I notice Metaphor didn't respond to post #232 that contained a link that directly says aphasia is not a cognitive issue but a one of language. He had to have seen it since he's responded to posts made after it. That's now two authoritative links I've provided that say aphasia is not a cognitive condition yet he continues to make his argument.

I don't find it worth the effort to try to get Metaphor to admit that he has exaggerated the seriousness of Fetterman's linguistic problems. He has pretty much admitted that it is just a language problem, not necessarily something that has seriously affected his intelligence or overall ability to think rationally. However, he still seems to think that there is some kind of political hay that he can make out of Fetterman's stroke-induced linguistic disability. So he focuses on the need of a politician to communicate effectively with his constituents and colleagues, which is a real need that a senator has, ignoring the fact that Fetterman, even with his language issues, is still doing a pretty good job of communicating effectively with the press and others.

The problem is that people really do confuse linguistic ability with intelligence and reasoning ability. That's because we often see conditions where speech difficulties accompany impaired thought processes. After all, language is the primary means by which we communicate thoughts and reasoning processes. For example, people who are drunk often reason more poorly than when they are sober. So we associate their slurred speech with their other mental deterioration. People suffering from aphasia can also have slurred speech, so we associate their verbal stumbles with the verbal stumbles that a drunk might make.

Aphasia is the generic term that we use for a wide variety of behavioral problems that cause language loss. There are several different major types of aphasia, and the location of brain lesions is broadly associated with those different kinds of aphasia. A very common type of aphasia is motor aphasia, sometimes called Broca's aphasia because of the area of the brain where the damage occurs. That is just the loss of articulatory coordination during speech, but it doesn't tend to affect comprehension or reasoning ability very seriously.

The terrifying thing about aphasia is that it causes one to lose the effortless grasp one normally has in speaking and hearing a native tongue. English can suddenly become a bit of a foreign language to a native English speaker. So the victim has to "relearn" some parts of English to recover. That is, the brain has to learn to suppress misarticulations again--something that happens instinctively in early childhood, but not so instinctively in adulthood. So Fetterman is finding English a bit of a challenge sometimes in the same way that a learner of a foreign language finds speaking and understanding that language a bit of a challenge. An English speaker can still think clearly but find it difficult to carry on a conversation in French, even though he or she has studied French for years and can read it fluently. Subtitles in English or French help such people understand the French spoken in French movies. That difficulty increases dramatically under stress, and that is why Fetterman's performance was much worse in a debate than it otherwise would have been in a relaxed conversation with a reporter or constituent. And that is why he requested subtitles for the debate.