You know how I love defining things. So to add to your definition of ad hominem I will supplement this nuance which I consider germane to the discussion:Finrock wrote: ↑June 20th, 2017, 1:24 pmFor clarification's sake, an ad hominem is simply attacking the character or the person themselves as opposed to the ideas or the content/substance. That is all it takes to make a comment or argument an ad hominem. The severity level of the ad hominem is of no consequence. There are many ways to employ ad hominem arguments. The particular type of ad hominem employed in your posts is specifically, poisoning the well. This is where you cast doubt as to the character of the person you are disagreeing with in an effort to invalidate or to ridicule the ideas that are going to be or which are being expressed.brlenox wrote: ↑June 20th, 2017, 7:16 amAnd I invite you to reread several of your own long diatribes addressed to virtually any person that ever calls into question your methods wherein you harp on integrity and intellectual honesty and take your own words to heart and begin to operate with such. Your character is the issue of why I seldom engage you and that sentence was only to provide you with understanding of why I do not often respond to your posts. I did not magnify that one observation to the point of ad hominem but left it as a singular observation while I discussed the substance of my observation.Finrock wrote: ↑June 20th, 2017, 2:32 am
Brlenox,
Part One (Part Two to follow):
Your continued attempts to invalidate my words which disagree with your ideas by attacking my character and going after me personally demonstrates the very principle being addressed in the last few posts by Backblast and myself. You should know that accusing me, calling me names (fink, for instance), disparaging my intelligence, and every other such tactic only reveals what is in your heart and in your mind, and it speaks to me none at all. I see you as a brother and I carefully consider your posts even when I think you are wrong. And, understand that I am not offended by your continued attacks against me because I believe I understand where you are at and where you are coming from. At any time I'm ready to move on and to have a sincere discussion with you. But, I point these ad hominems out with the hopes that you will stop wasting so much energy and time on something so fruitless when there are so many other ways to use that energy so as to promote what is good and right. I invite you to drop all ad hominems of every sort from your communications from here on out and to approach discussions in sincerity and with mutual respect and to deal with the content and substance of what has been said. Judge the words based on the merits of the words alone. Treat your brothers and sister fairly. Consider that you probably don't know the heart and the intent of those with whom you speak. Consider that all people make mistakes, yourself included. Believe the best of those whom you are addressing. The spirit of contention does not need to exist and we don't have to agree with one another in order to understand one another. This post will be my last time addressing these things. From here on out I'm going to allow you to say whatever you want about me, make any accusation against me that you wish, call me any name that you want, imply that I'm inferior, not intelligent enough to understand your posts, and/or make whatever personal jab or attack against me that you desire and I'm going to simply focus on whatever portion of your posts have substance. I might still call you out in the defense of others, but, I don't care what you think about me personally, etc. :p
-Finrock
Let it be known that I understand how you feel about me and I am very much aware of your accusations. Let it also be know that how you feel about me personally is irrelevant to the ideas I'm expressing and I don't care. Neither do I care why you do or do not engage with me. If you do engage with someone in a discussion/debate (whether that's me or anyone), the only ethical and moral thing to do is to judge the ideas being expressed based on the merits of the ideas themselves.
-Finrock
Ad hominem is as you describe it however, the state of being ad hominem is distinctly different than being a fallacy. It can be perfect truth.It should be noted that simply calling someone a name or otherwise making an ad hominem attack is not in itself a logical fallacy. It is only a fallacy to claim that an argument is wrong because of a negative attribute of someone making the argument. (i.e. “John is a jerk.” is not a fallacy. “John is wrong because he is a jerk.” is a logical fallacy.) (http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resourc ... -fallacies)