Ad Hominen Fallacy
Description of Ad Hominem Fallacy:
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:
1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B makes an attack on person A.
3. 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
1. 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."
~~The Nizkor Project, 1991-2009
Emile, that is a phenomenal expression! Haven't encountered that in years. Thank you, it just made my afternoon a bit more "chuckle-ier".
James.
Ivan Nizkor was a known pedophile and sheep buggerer, so I really don't care about his views on the subject.
Perfect example of ad hominem riposte
- Valemanposted 11 years ago
0 Normally, I will leave people to wallow in their ignorance because I know that most of them don't care anyhow.
Only on matters where the outcome of their false ideas effects me in some way do I normally intervene. For example, as a mathematician, I am statistically likely to be funded by a department of government in some capacity at some point in my life. Therefore, when I notice that persons are falsely arguing a point in which the final decision could lead to reduction in the perceived need for research funding in sciences, then it becomes a relevant issue to me.
In the other cases, it is a matter of academic integrity to me. It is the responsibility of those who know what is right to share it with those who do not. Note that this is not the same as academic evangelism, in which the object is to force feed academic knowledge to people.
Fair enough, it would be great if you folks would spend the time to distinguish those differences for the members here. Don't you think if you did, the amount of such attacks would decrease, the reporting of such attacks would decrease and hence the amount of work you folks would need to do in these matters would decrease as would the bans.
Seems like a win-win situation for all involved.Excellent point. That could very well be some of the false reasoning behind bans that were questioned or appeared unfair. It would seem that perhaps those who initiate the bans may not fully understand that.
That would be both!
There are four categories of Ad Hominem, that one is called the Ad Hominem Abusive.
There are also the Ad Hominem Tu Quoque, Circumstantial and Guilt by Association fallacies. All of these should be well defined here in order for the TOS to be valid when it comes to Ad Hominems and banning.Hi Jason, I'm wondering if you folks will indeed take the time to explain and define the 'personal attack' rule for us so it is clear and well understood? As I mentioned earlier, it would be a win-win situation for all concerned. Or, will the members have to go on a trial-and-error basis by getting banned? Thanks in advance.
That is not true, Jason. I thought to do a little experiment and reported what were blatant and obvious personal attacks and observed those members who made them to be happily posting away. Clearly, a banning here is not based on the rules but some other criteria, politics and favoritism, most likely.
I suspect that's why you folks never bothered to define the differences as that would remove that ability to ban based on those other criteria. Of course, you folks are free to do so as it is your forum, but it makes the TOS look like a joke and your reasoning above entirely irrelevant.
I'm guessing the answers is "No" based on the silence, Jason? Folks will just continue to wonder if they will get banned through trial and error and you folks will be dogged with constant complaints and trying to explain to others why they were banned, thus wasting time and resources?
Oh well, it was worth a try.
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