RE: STEEM: The Disproportionate Power Balance with Downvotes
From your own quote,
...directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.
...is often a personal attack on someone's character or motive...
So If I suggest that you're holding a particular viewpoint because you're paid by an interested party, that's an ad hominem attack.
If I suggest that your viewpoint is invalid (wholesale) because you're a moron, or some other derogatory term (like child molester), that's an ad hominem attack.
It really doesn't matter if the ad hominem attack is "true" or not. It's still an ad hominem attack if it's aimed at the person or their character or their motives (the mind reader fallacy is another common example) instead of at the LOGICAL STRUCTURE or COHERENCE of their argument.
An ad hominem attack is often in service of a rush-to-disqualify a debate partner.
Defamation and slander and libel are synonymous with ad hominem attack.
Indeed yet when there's no position and it's simply an insult it's not an ad hominem. Not all insults are ad hominems and not all ad hominems are insults, but all ad hominens must have a position or argument that it tries to undermine by changing of position/argument. Without any position to defer from it's simply a Personal Attack.
I am confused!
I needed to look it up.
ad hominem
adj. Attacking a person's character or motivations rather than a position or argument.
adj. Appealing to the emotions rather than to logic or reason.
n. To the man; to the interests or passions of the person.
how can you insult someone when it is not about wanting to change a persons way of seeing something? ether the person you are insulting or other onlookers.
Is it one of my blind spots or one of yours? I am not sure yet.
For example, if someone says "your favorite president is an idiot", it's an attempt to discredit and or disqualify anything and everything they say (and strongly implies that you're also an idiot for choosing such a buffoon as your favorite president, the guilt-by-association fallacy).
It isn't specifically aimed at undermining a particular "argument" or "position" they might espouse, it is a general dismissal of EVERYTHING they've done and or might do in the future.
Saying, "your favorite president is an idiot" is an ad hominem attack (both a direct and indirect attack).
It's also a broad-brush fallacy.
It's also a bald-assertion.
It's also an appeal-to-ignorance.
(1) Please provide an example of an ad hominem attack that is NOT an insult.
(2) Please provide an example of an insult that is NOT an ad hominem attack.
Equally an Ad hominem that isn't an insult when it is True
Wiki
Citation please.
Truth has no quality of Disrespect or Respect, which is what insults hinge on. If an ad hominem is True then it cannot be an insult, it can only be an observation.
So, if someone says, "I think you're a lying dog-faced pony-soldier", that's NOT an ad hominem attack in your opinion because it's "TRUE" (that person is presumably sincere)??
The key problem here is that character is QUALITATIVE (GNOSIS).
The other key problem here is that motives are QUALITATIVE (GNOSIS).
And you seem to be glossing-over the point that even your source specifies "in SOme instances" (probably when the question tautologically involves questions of "character" and or "motive", of course under those conditions "character" and or "motive" would necessarily be relevant). HOWever, "character" and "motive" are both beyond our epistemological limits (un-quantifiable, self-reported, implicit, subconscious).
And your bald assertion that an ad hominem attack is not fallacious if it's "true" is not supported by any of your quoted sources.
Why is that a problem?
Baloney
What 'attack'? It's a god damn Ad Hominem, a type of Argument, and not necessarily a type of Flawed or False Argument. Ergo, it's not Fallacious if it is true, as the last quote explains.
The key problem here is that character is QUALITATIVE
Because there is no way to QUANTIFY "character".
And without QUANTIFICATION there is no way to verify a claim's "TRUTH-VALUE".
Your quote "explains" no such thing.
It simply asserts that in SOME cases, presumably if the subject at hand is specifically about a person's history and or personal choices, data relevant to such an inquiry CANNOT be considered off-limits.
HOweVer, I can't imagine a case where a person's history and or personal choices would be a subject of scrutiny wholly divorced from any explicit or implicit attack or endorsement of their abilities and or ideas WHOLESALE.
A "positive" ad hominem is just as fallacious as a "negative" ad hominem.
You shouldn't believe someone just because they're a doctor.
You shouldn't disbelieve someone just because they're a commie.
It explains that an ad hominem isn't fallacious if the position the other has implicates their character/ motivations etc.
It's not about Positive or Negative or such value statements, it's about Correct or Incorrect reasoning, True or False argumentation.
I agree, claims should be examined by themselves but if the creed of the Doctor is to always obfuscate or lie/deceive then it would be difficult not to believe them, the same creed-o would dismiss the commie if that were the case.
Well that's encouraging.
The only "problem" being that you can never know "their character" or "motivations" etc, due to your EPISTEMOLOGICAL LIMITS.
And even the most morally repulsive, malevolent person can still make a perfectly valid logically sound statement.
Their moral repulsiveness and malevolence do not magically invalidate their logic.