WHY IT IS NOT AD HOMINEM TO ACCUSE SOMEONE OF BEING TOO STUPID TO USE THE TERM "AD HOMINEM" CORRECTLY

 What many posters on Atheism vs. Christianity know is that "ad hominem" is a logical fallacy. What almost as many of them don't know is that it doesn't function as a good excuse to take any unflattering statement that is made about you and attempt to make it out to be an error in logic. I would say from being here about eight months that 95% of the time the term "ad hominem" is utilized incorrectly and dishonestly as a cop-out to try and make anything negative and personal out to be ad hominem.

The misinterpretation of the term "ad hominem" is largely to do with the overly brief definitions that are used:

From dictionary.com:

1.	appealing to one's prejudices, emotions, or special interests rather than to one's intellect or reason.

2.	attacking an opponent's character rather than answering his argument.

 

This could make it sound like any personal attack is ad hominem because it is poorly worded--dictionaries are deliberately brief and by extension unintentionally vague sometimes. Calling someone an idiot can kind of sound like an ad hominem argument if these definitions are all you know of regarding what "ad hominem" means. You could even look at the Latin translation "argument against the man". But let's remember the original point: ad hominem is a logical fallacy. It would not be any more of a fallacy to call an idiot an idiot than to call a murderer a murderer. If something is just an insult, you can call it that, but it is dishonest to try and make that insult out to be a flaw in logic when it isn't.

"Ad hominem" is an association fallacy. It relies on a flaw regarding the logical association. Simply put, ad hominem works like this:

(1) Person A's argument is X.

(2) Person B makes an irrelevant attack on person A

(3) Therefore, person A's argument is false.

Specifically speaking, Person B offered nothing but an irrelevant attack--not an attack and a logical refute and not an attack that is completely relevant (i.e. "you are a liar because you lied"--not a logical fallacy). It is not the insulting nature of the comment or even the personal nature of the comment that makes it ad hominem--it is the fallacy regarding the association between a person and his or her argument.

An example of ad hominem would be "you are a Nazi, and Nazis hate Jews, therefore your argument against the defendant is a lie". Another example of ad hominem would be "you're not a psychologist, so there goes your argument that Christians are delusional". "You're an idiot" is never ad hominem on its own because it simply draws a conclusion about the speaker and is not a direct assertion that the argument is logically false because the person making it is an idiot.

 

Likewise, calling someone a liar because they lied is never an ad hominem fallacy. Attaching a label to someone because the label describes them is never a fallacy. Saying "you're a Nazi because you fit my definition of a 'Nazi'" is not a logical fallacy, as X=X is definitionally accurate, and something that is definitionally accurate every time can't be a fallacy. Also, attacking the credibility of the speaker because of the quality of his or her arguments is technically the opposite of an ad hominem fallacy.

But I couldn't put it any more clearly than this page does. I think this link is the perfect run-down to clarify what is ad hominem and what is not if you still don't get it:

http://plover.net/~bonds/adhominem.html

After reading that you have no excuse to use "ad hominem" improperly.

Other References:

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/ad-hominem.html

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adhomine.html

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So now that we have established what "ad hominem" actually means, and there is an article about it for all to see, we know that it is not ad hominem to call Dillan, LiamToo or any of the other idiots who use it incorrectly idiots. It is also not ad hominem to punch somebody in the face for using it the wrong way.

 

--Dev
 

P.S. Deidzoeb gave a great example of an ad hominem argument in the first reply to this article. "You are maybe the second to last person who should be helping others to understand what counts as 'ad hominem' and what does not." He then continues with a personal attack as opposed to addressing the logic in this article or the articles referenced. Thanks, Deid.

 

UPDATE: POSTERS TOO STUPID TO USE "AD HOMINEM" CORRECTLY, BECAUSE THEIR MOTHERS MARRIED THEIR BROTHERS AND SHARED NEEDLES WHILE PREGNANT

Checkers

Dillan

LiamToo

Msgt_Billy

Deidzoeb

almost everyone on A Civil Religious Debate