OT fallacies (was: The wisdom of the object mentors)

From: mAsterdam <mAsterdam_at_vrijdag.org>
Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 01:21:39 +0200
Message-ID: <4480c784$0$31655$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl>

Marshall wrote:
> Keith H Duggar wrote:
>

>>What BB wrote may be called an /insult/ but it is >>not ad hominem since it is not even an argument.

Some selective snipping gives:

 >>> What BB wrote ... is not even an argument. True. No logic, no fallacy, just ad hominem.

Nah. Not my style. I do not like it. I won't proceed that way.

>>Ad hominem refers to a fallacious
>>form of /argumentation/. BB's argumentation followed that
>>insult. The insult was not his argument. Do you understand?
>>You are not alone in this increasingly common misconception
>>that insult = ad hominem.

>
>
> Exactly.
>
> Some examples:
>
> "What you wrote is wrong, therefore you suck." Not ad-hominem.
>
> "You suck, therefore what you wrote is wrong." Ad-hominem.
>
> "You suck." Not ad-hominem.
>
>
> That is all.

All three utterances are not by themselves examples of the "ad-hominem" logical fallacy. All of them are ad hominem (=personal) attacks, though.

Stuff like "[X], you are an idiot." and "With all due respect, what on earth makes you think anything you write is the least bit interesting?" does not qualify as the "ad-hominem" logical fallacy when not used as premisse.

True, but that does not make it right.

The insults /do/ constitute personal attacks. They are highly distracting, serve the same purpose as the logical fallacy.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/redherrf.html Received on Fri Jun 02 2006 - 18:21:39 CDT