I disagree, saving time is irrelevant. If I know someone is stupid and unreasonable from experience, I'm not going to get into a discussion with them. That's saving time. Getting into the discussion and then use logical fallacies like Ad Hominem isn't saving time, it's wasting time. Just because someone is an idiot doesn't mean an attack on his character is an argument. Saying "you're stupid" might be stating a fact, but it's not an argument relevant to the discussion.

On November 22 2013 03:05 Barrin wrote:Basically, both Ad Hominems (personal attacks) and Ad Auctoritates (arguments from authority) are at best lazy and at worse a missed opportunity to learn and improve (for someone at least, making you kind of an ass). One who is genuinely interested in finding the truth (or the best known way of do something) will stick to the top 3 levels of that pyramid. If you ever encounter something you don't have the time to use the top 3 levels on, it's probably not that important so lest you risk being an ass (and/or worse, wrong) you might as well move along anyway.

Would you consider But he has been divorced three times! an ad hominem, when someone is a self-styled relationship expert? Maybe you're not even directly arguing with the person in question, maybe a friend or partner gives this expert as the source for his claim that, say, Sex must be reserved for special occasions.

Mothra

United States1448 Posts

November 21 2013 19:15 GMT

#43

Looked up ad hominem in dictionary of philosophy. It says there is a fallacious type and one that is proper. The former is attacking someones conclusion as unsound by using their personal characteristics as premises. The second type is taking a premise they hold true and showing a conclusion that logically follows but they won't accept. Example given is that a politician has friends profiting from shady deals that he denounced as wicked. It is not fallacious to point out that his view are inconsistent, even if you don't agree to the premise that deals of those type are wicked.

Jerubaal

United States7684 Posts

November 21 2013 19:54 GMT

#44

On November 21 2013 20:40 ninazerg wrote:

Show nested quote +

I disagree with your definition of acceptable ad hominems because I really can't take the opinion of someone who uses an apostrophe for a plural serious.

You're an easy person to get along with.

AnachronisticAnarchy

United States2957 Posts

November 21 2013 20:56 GMT

#45

Ad hominem is something one could use casually, like in circumstances where appeal to authority is still useful, but in real debate where discourse is held to a high standard and the results of the discourse are important (i.e. scientific debates), ad hominem is a lousy excuse for a real argument.

FunkyLich

United States107 Posts

November 22 2013 05:58 GMT

#46

Before I start, I just wanna state for the record that I think when people start quoting informal fallacies, it pretty much always means the argument has degenerated down to a battle waged by level 999 Latin vocabularies, with people busting out the big guns like ergo and tu quoque. I really fucking hate that. Most informals don't really need to be delved into. They're bad arguments because they are irrelevant. And some informals aren't really indicative of a logical fallacy. They might just be red flags. Slippery slope is an example of this, which basically says that it's a fallacy to give an argument using a convoluted or long chain of cause-effect assertions, which isn't fair, because the logic could still be sound. IMO you should only be able to call something a fallacy (formal OR informal) if it is indicative that the conclusion does NOT follow from the premises. Which means every informal fallacy should be derivable from a formal one. "Should" being the operant word. It's unfortunate, but that's just not the way things are. All that said, I think ad hominem is actually very well behaved.

So this is how I would define it: An ad hominem attack is an argument that attempts to undermine the soundness of another argument by (negatively) commenting on the argument's presenter and not the argument itself.

So I would include in the definition that it is based on no relevant premises. In a case where it is possible to comment on the argument's presenter in a way that is pertinent to the argument being retorted, I would not flag that as ad hominem, because it is discussing the argument itself. And that is ultimately all that matters. What would such an argument look like?

Imhotep: I am smart and pretty. Pretty people deserve to sit up front. Therfore I deserve to sit up front.
Gerard: Nothing personal, but you are ugly, therefore your premise does not hold and your argument is invalid.

Gerard isn't really using ad hominem here, he is just bringing up a fact that is negatively relevant to Imhotep's argument, and just happens to be about Imhotep.

So to clarify "ad hominem" applies ONLY to arguments that are retorts, that is, any argument that claims another argument is not sound.

Let's go down a list of examples.

Rush Limbaugh is an idiot. -- not ad hominem
This is not an argument, so obviously we can't call it ad hominem. Easy enough?

Rush Limbaugh is an idiot, therefore he smells. -- not ad hominem
This qualifies as an argument but it does not retort anything Rush is saying.

Rush Limbaugh is an idiot, therefore when he talks about [gay marriage], he's wrong. -- bonafide ad hominem
This is a retort to any argument Rush makes about gay marriage. It doesn't matter what he says; he's wrong. In a strict logical context this would be completely unacceptable. The only way to give logical proof for this statement would be to create a formally sound argument that captures everything Rush has said about gay marriage, and conclusively shows that he was wrong. Who has time for that?

I'm gonna throw a curve ball now.
Rush Limbaugh is an idiot, so you shouldn't listen to him.
This is an argument, but it's left a little bit open to interpretation. Don't listen to him because his arguments are usually wrong? Don't listen to him because it's a waste of time? The logic isn't exactly laid out bare, and as far as we know, the speaker isn't thinking about the logic. He may just be making a natural jump in reasoning by associating idiots with people that aren't worth listening to.

People do this thing called heuristics, where we make judgement calls that may be somewhat error prone but are nonetheless fast. We all use them all the time. I'm walking down the street and some numbskull starts yelling at me about how I'm gonna go to hell. I could take the time and reason out WHY I should refrain from listening to this guy, or I could just say he's an idiot, and listening would be a waste of time. A group of people who look like thugs are walking toward you at night. You could try to reason about what the probability is that they will try to hurt you, or you could just avoid them right now, before there is even a chance of confrontation. Maybe it turns out the bible thumper would have paused his diatribe to tell you your shoe was untied. Maybe the people you thought looked like thugs from far away are normally dressed, and now they think you're a wierdo for dodging them so obviously. The idea is that with good heuristics, most of the time they are right, and they are rarely wrong. So I guess my point is just because ad hominem arguments are not admissable in a strict logical sense, they can still be used in a heuristic way.

That was longer than I'd hoped. I like when people bring these kinds of things up. It gives me an excuse to record my thoughts. Cheers

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