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Good morning, all. It has been shown to me, in a couple months on this board, that quite a few people here do not understand what "Ad Hominem" is.
Putting aside semantic wrangling using varying "dictionary" definitions from multiple sources, let's discuss and make it clear what the main thrust and spirit of Ad Hominem actually is.
This is Ad Hominem:
If someone were to make a formal argument, with clearly stated premises and logical operations on those premises...
.. and another person responds only by saying the argument is poopie, because the person who made it is a poopiehead...
THAT is Ad Hominem.
NOT Ad Hominem:
A person merely states a sweeping, unargued opinion of something (a movie, a book, the January 6th hearings, etc)...
...then another person points out the opinion is worthless, because the person stating the opinion has never actually watched the movie, read the book, or watched the hearings...
...that is NOT Ad Hominem. That is a perfectly valid attack to undermine a totally uninformed opinion.
Imagine the absurdity of this mistaken claim of Ad Hominem, in another setting:
Ebert: "This movie is trash, start to finish."
Siskel: "But your opinion is worthless, as you didn't actually watch the movie."
Ebert: " Ad hominem! Ad hominem! You big meanie!"
Putting aside semantic wrangling using varying "dictionary" definitions from multiple sources, let's discuss and make it clear what the main thrust and spirit of Ad Hominem actually is.
This is Ad Hominem:
If someone were to make a formal argument, with clearly stated premises and logical operations on those premises...
.. and another person responds only by saying the argument is poopie, because the person who made it is a poopiehead...
THAT is Ad Hominem.
NOT Ad Hominem:
A person merely states a sweeping, unargued opinion of something (a movie, a book, the January 6th hearings, etc)...
...then another person points out the opinion is worthless, because the person stating the opinion has never actually watched the movie, read the book, or watched the hearings...
...that is NOT Ad Hominem. That is a perfectly valid attack to undermine a totally uninformed opinion.
Imagine the absurdity of this mistaken claim of Ad Hominem, in another setting:
Ebert: "This movie is trash, start to finish."
Siskel: "But your opinion is worthless, as you didn't actually watch the movie."
Ebert: " Ad hominem! Ad hominem! You big meanie!"
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