Comments on: If I suggested you read this, it is because you used “ad hominem” wrong

By: Christopher Winter

Christopher Winter — Tue, 05 May 2020 17:03:51 +0000

In reply to Spelling B.. You are addressing his ability to recognize and use proper terminology, rather than the substance of his argument. So — pending my finding through a search that "visa versa" is in fact a valid alternative to "vice versa" — I would say it's an ad hominem but not a case of the ad hominem fallacy.

By: Spelling B.

Spelling B. — Mon, 04 May 2020 23:50:07 +0000

I find it difficult to accept an argument from someone who uses “visa versa” in place of vice versa. Since I haven’t called him a name, am I using ad hominem logic?

By: bad Jim

bad Jim — Mon, 04 May 2020 05:42:50 +0000

I want to speak up in favor of the ad hominem argument. It’s often a handy heuristic, an intellectual labor-saving device. In an environment of discourse in which the Dunning-Kruger effect is demonstrated in every other comment, it’s not out of bounds to say that someone doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Daniel Davies has famously stipulated that known liars are not due the benefit of the doubt.

The strong ad hominem argument, that because you’re a jerk you’re wrong, is obviously false. However, it’s reasonable to ignore purported facts put forward by known liars, the racist theories of notorious racists, or more generally the notions of the ill-informed. They’re not worthy of our limited attention.

By: Tyvor Winn

Tyvor Winn — Sun, 03 May 2020 16:19:40 +0000

Re: “ad hominem”
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Interesting, I’ve never thought about that particular point and when I looked “ad hominem” up in my old dictionary,* after giving the Latin literal meaning, it had only the following definition: “appealing to one’s prejudices rather than to reason, as by attacking one’s opponent rather than debating the issue”.

At least in that dictionary context is apparently important. An “ad hominem” comment is out of bounds — i.e., a kind of fallacy** — in what is supposed to be a scientific argument or a debate, which is the usage which I’ve seen the most.

It could be just a case of long-continued usage becoming the meaning of a word or phrase rather than its original but now seldom-used meaning, or its plain meaning in the original language from which it was adopted or derived.

* Webster’s New World Dictionary, Second College Edition (1984).
** One of that dictionary’s definitions of “fallacy” is, in part, “flaw or defect in argument”.

In future, I intend to avoid use of the term and just say what I mean in plain English.