(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 7

[Nick Lee]

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 1:20 AM, Nick Lee <starwaterstrain at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> >And even if this were a personal attack, that would not make it inherently
> fallacious: "The *argumentum ad hominem* is not always >fallacious, for in
> some instances questions of personal conduct, character, motive, etc., are
> legitimate and relevant to the issue." pg >170. Douglas Walton,* Informal
> Logic: A Practical Approach*.
>
>
> I really shouldn't have posted at 1 AM. The title of Walton's book is *Informal
Logic: A Pragmatic Approach*.

I'll also take this opportunity to clarify, as I think I might have been
unclear on one point. Dan'l Danehy-Oakes seems to think others in this
thread are guilty of* ad hominem circumstantial* rather than *ad hominem
abuse*. I didn't explain the difference before. I'll direct you to Wikipedia
as you probably don't have a copy of Walton lying around.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

This fallacy is not present in previous discussions because this reasoning
is not being used to attack the validity of the argument. Rather it is an
after-the-fact discussion of his biases. You can certainly discuss someone's
biases as long as it is not being used as your sole means of attacking the
argument. Even in you did, this would still not be a fallacy necessarily
because: "Where the source taking a position seeks to convince us by a claim
of authority, or personal observation, observation of their circumstances
may reduce the evidentiary weight of the claims, sometimes to zero"
(Wikipedia). Also Walton, quoted above (another version of which I now see
is actually quoted by Wikipedia at the start of their article).

If anyone would like to read up on fallacies,
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/is a good resource.

Nicholas Goodman <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#cite_note-five-3>
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