Talk:Ad hominem

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November 2002 – April 2007

Argument that there no ad hominem fallacy

David Hitchcock presents an argument that there is no ad hominem fallacy: http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~hitchckd/adhominemissa.htm

Should the case against considering ad hominem as fallacious be included in the ad hominem entry?

Adam Geffen 13:16, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

A fallacy is a pattern of reason that it always or least most commonly wrong. I haven't looked at the link, but this means that there will be instances of the use of the fallacy of ad hominem which aren't fallacious but are actually valid. This will be the case with many other fallacies as well. -- Grumpyyoungman01 00:22, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

They use a wrong definition of fallacy: “By definition, a fallacy is a mistake in reasoning, a mistake which occurs with some frequency in real arguments and which is characteristically deceptive." - A fallacy is not always a mistake in reasoning, as the definition I put forward above demonstrates. Grumpyyoungman01 00:26, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

(nods) I agree the argument presented by Hitchcock hinges on the definition of "fallacy". It is not clear to me that they use a wrong definition of fallacy. For example the Oxford English Dictionary defines fallacy as: "A deceptive or misleading argument, a sophism. In Logic esp. a flaw, material or formal, which vitiates a syllogism; any of the species or types to which such flaws are reducible." Moreover they didn't simply make up a new definition for fallacy. Rather, they relied on Govier's summary of fallacy in western philosophy. (Though, I have not read the Govier article so I can't evaluate its merit.) Even if we assume arguendo that a fallacy could be valid in some cases, then Hitchcock's work is still noteworthy vis-a-vis this entry because it presents an illustration of when ad hominem is valid. Also Hitchcock's work does not stand alone. As Hitchcock notes, Brinton presented a defense of ad hominem as valid in some contexts: Brinton, A. (1985). A rhetorical view of the ad hominem. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 63, 50-63. It seems worth mentioning, at least briefly, the gist of these works and their cites. Adam Geffen 14:05, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that you add a couple of paragraphs and maybe an example under a heading and summarise the article (with references). Be bold! and if someone doesn't like it we can sort it out here. Grumpyyoungman01 06:30, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Important distinction

In judging the likelihood of accuracy of *data* supported only by the assertion of a person, the character of the person is relevant and useful to consider. However in determining the accuracy of an *argument* based on undisputed premises, the character or authority (or lack thereof) of the person making the argument is absolutely irrelevant. This article should make that vital (and one would hope obvious) distinction.

Good point. Data can be lied about, and it is the only thing in a logical argument that can be lied about. Data can still be argued valid or invalid based on how it was collected, but those facts are more "data" that can be lied about.

Thus it behooves a person to use his opponent's data to make his argument whenever possible.

Latin translation

Given as "argument to the person", "argument against the man" in the article, shouldn't the awkwardness of the former and the sexism of the latter be avoided by translating as "argument against the person"?--Rfsmit 23:53, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Transliterated, it is "Argument to the man", where "man" is the non-gender-specific generic form. "Argument against the person" may be a reasonable translation, but both of the given quotes seem to be bad compromises -- PaulxSA 11:49, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Ad hominem generale = ?

attributing a described behaviour to a condition or property of mankind; to a species-wide, or cultural trait. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.77.231.32 (talk) 21:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)

Eugenics: Good example?

While it may be a good journalist's style to use examples that are very disputed, it seems a little inappropriate within an encyclopedia. The example of using eugenics as an argumentum ad hominem creates the unfortunate impression that someone is trying no only to demonstrate the meaning of the term, but rather to sneak in a world view. On the page on eugenics, this is part of a neutral discussion, here it is simply a bad example.

It is better to use something that does not distract from what is the purpose of this article and that does not bring its authors under suspicion of abusing NPOV for their aims. Atoll 23:49, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

However, it is a common real-world example, ie, something the reader may have actually seen. Whenever any kind of eugenics/social-darwinism type argument is raised, it is immediately attacked as Nazi-ist. The point about ad hominem is that if social darwinism is evil, which it probably is, it is not evil because the Nazis believed in it; it would still be evil even if the Nazis were wildly opposed to it. -- PaulxSA 12:03, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Why we use ad hominems

I noticed that the intro discusses judging evidence by the character of the witness. This is an important tool in court cases, yet nothing is mentioned about it in the article proper. Since the article is essentially "ad homs are bad", this implies that the use in court is also bad. I thought this would be a good place for someone to discuss the legal use (and abuse) of character judgements in court. -- PaulxSA 13:01, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

(I added such a section, plus some other things, then Blax reverted the entire uglified article to an earlier clean version. Since it was my first admin-level reversion, I got angry and scared and confused... but I'm okay now :) -- PaulxSA (talk) 12:54, 12 January 2008 (UTC) )

In the legal issue above the question is whether or not to trust someone's honesty. Assessment of character applies there. --Roger Chrisman (talk) 03:47, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd take your suggestion more seriously, Paul, if you hadn't just committed an Ad Hominem statement yourself. To wit: You summed up the article in four words, took that summation and expected us to assume that it's valid, and then offered it a value judgement you think the article is making. You were OK up until then, but then you jumped to the conclusion that that value judgement you just assigned is actually being assigned by the article. Sorry, that's not how you construct an argument. Ohh, and if you thought this article had something to do with legalities, you thought wrong. This is philosophy, not legality. You want the next wiki down the hall, turn right, and make a left turn at Albiquirky. --Allthenamesarealreadytaken (talk) 14:56, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I shortened "fallacy" to "bad", shoot me. And just to be pedantic, falsely shortening an argument, then attacking the shortened version as if it were the full argument is a straw man, not an ad hominem.

The article is primarily philosophical, but the wiki isn't. There is a Colloquial use section living here quite happily in spite of much of the colloquial use of ad hom being wrong. (Ie, "if you believe X you are stupid," is merely an insult not an ad hominem.) Since people do correctly make character judgements in the real world, as well as getting it horribly horribly wrong, I don't see why mentioning it in the article somehow harms the article, let alone wikipedia. Particularly, it explains why we are so vulnerable to using, and believing, ad hominem arguments. -- PaulxSA (talk) 12:54, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Inverse ad hominem

I've redirected this to appeal to authority, though the term is a little broader in scope. Should it have its own article, or perhaps a section here? Is a redirect of any sort useful in Wikipedia's present state? Richard001 (talk) 08:54, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Have created a section here. A summary of appeal to authority might also be appropriate. Richard001 (talk) 04:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Isn't there another form of inverse ad hominem? Rather than 'Person X is good, person X supports Y, therefore Y is true' which is the simple form presented, it seems to me there's another form. Notably, an inverse ad hominem circumstantial... Effectively, situations in which a person says what they would not be expected to say are often used to bolster an argument.

For instance, comtrast the presented ad hominem circumstantial example: "He's physically addicted to nicotine. Of course he defends smoking!”.

It's very common to hear an inverted form of this argument, in the following form: "He's physically addicted to nicotine, yet he believes smoking should be outlawed. This proves that smoking should be outlawed, because even the people one would expect to support it do not.”

Of course, this gets a bit grey as to whether it stands distinctly or sort of segues into a form of argument by authority. For instance, the following statement:

"He used to be a Satanist, but has since stopped being one. He alleges several socially unacceptable practices of Satanists, and argues that said religion is bad, and he would know because he used to be one".

An argument of this form could be considered sort of the mid point between an inverted circumstantial argument ad hominem and an appeal to authority. Of course, it's also a very potentially weakly weighted argument as well, which hinges on what 'he' has become since--if he became someone commonly opposed to Satanism, such as a Christian or an Atheist (both of whom oppose Satanism for seperate reasons) the weight perceived in 'his' opinion would likely be weaker, easily falling prey to circumstantial argument ad hominem in a non-inverted sense (i.e. "Well, someone who gave up Satanism for an opposing point of view would be against Satanism"). On the other hand, if he converted to a religion not opposed to Satanism but merely with different beliefs which do not oppose or negate Satanism's stance and which may be accepting of Satanism, such as Temple of Set, then maintaining a stnace against Satanism would not easily fall prey to a circumstantial argument ad hominem.

Anyway, just some thoughts that there's a whole area that might be nice to see explored if people can find references other than obviousness. After all, seeing that the sky is blue is no reason to say it is (at least acpording to Wikipedia's draconian definition of OR).65.87.20.98 (talk) 22:29, 6 March 2008 (UTC)