(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 7

[Nick Lee]

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 12:45 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
wrote:

>It is not legitimate.  It is a logical fallacy to judge the validity
>of an argument by referring to the motivations of the person who makes
>the argument.

An ad hominem is an attack on the character or impartiliaty of the arguer
rather than his position. In the discussion you're talking about, Wright's
thesis is attacked on textual grounds. Then the explanation given for
Wright's error is his supposed atheism (though I am not sure how we know
he's an atheist).

Even if Wright's thesis were attacked on the basis of his atheism, as it is
framed in the discussion, this is not an attack on his character. No one is
saying there is something wrong with being an atheist. It's not a personal
attack.

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*.

It might amuse you to know that Wright is himself a user of reader response
theory. The idea of reader response theory is that individual readers bring
their own experiences and motivations to readings and use those to create
interpretations. I expect this particular information might shed light on
the issue as a whole.

Nicholas Goodman
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