Ad Hominem

[notfred]

<< Description of Ad Hominem
Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "against the man" or "against the person."

An Ad Hominem is a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument. Typically, this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character of person making the claim, her circumstances, or her actions is made (or the character, circumstances, or actions of the person reporting the claim). Second, this attack is taken to be evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making (or presenting). This type of "argument" has the following form:


Person A makes claim X.
Person B makes an attack on person A.
Therefore A's claim is false.
The reason why an Ad Hominem (of any kind) is a fallacy is that the character, circumstances, or actions of a person do not (in most cases) have a bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made (or the quality of the argument being made).

Example of Ad Hominem

Bill: "I believe that abortion is morally wrong."
Dave: "Of course you would say that, you're a priest."
Bill: "What about the arguments I gave to support my position?"
Dave: "Those don't count. Like I said, you're a priest, so you have to say that abortion is wrong. Further, you are just a lackey to the Pope, so I can't believe what you say." >>





Please keep this in mind when posting in threads that are conducive to arguments. Thank you.

 

[Goosemaster]

Interesting..I was sort of getting to that in a prior post this morning...go flushed down the line:|

 

[DaveSimmons]

Yes, an essential component of many ATOT arguments, and a great substitute for actual logic when "proving" the other person is wrong

 

[Red Dawn]

<< Please keep this in mind when posting in threads that are conducive to arguments. Thank you. >>

Oh yeah,well the next time you make a good point it will be the first time you make a good point!

 

[bizmark]

oh yeah?! Well screw you, man! You're just an idiot!

 

[notfred]

bump - this is worth reading.

 

[Nefrodite]

lol, your a moron for posting this in an internet forum


anyways, doesn't everyone learn this in philosphy or critical thinking courses

 

[Nefrodite]

list of fallacies



http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

 

[bandXtrb]

<< list of fallacies



http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ >>


Your list of fallacies is fallacious. Use this list:

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html

 

[Cyberian]

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html

Those are both good sites. - Thanks

 

[datalink7]

'eff you and the horse you road in on.

 

[yellowperil]

3 of the most common kind of ad hominem arguments are abusive, circumstantial, and Tu Quoque. All of them seem to be used pretty frequently on internet message boards. Abusive is the one described by notfred in the first post ("any argument presented by a person with character trait X is a bad argument"). Ad hominem circumstantial depends on the premise "if a person will benefit if their conclusion is accepted, then their argument is bad". Tu Quoque (you too) requires a "if you did/believed X, then it must be OK for me to do/believe X". Ad hominem arguments are essentially bad arguments, but they are easy to make and people are subconsciously convinced by them. Politicians do it all the time and many of them get elected this way.

 

[notfred]

<< anyways, doesn't everyone learn this in philosphy or critical thinking courses >>



You'd be surprised as to how many people have never taken those courses.

 

[RONType1]

<< .... Politicians do it all the time and many of them get elected this way. >>



Hehe, ain't that the truth.. or is it?!?!?!?! :Q

 

[PsychoAndy]

This actually might help my AP language analysis skills, since Ad Hominem arguments are something you have to look for when analyzing =\