"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
I'm really getting tired of the misuse of the term ad hominem.
"You are an idiot" is not an ad hominem attack. It is an insult (or perhaps it is an astute character assessment).
"You are an idiot, therefore your argument that the sun rises in the east is clearly without merit" is ad hominem. The nature of the fallacy is that the implication is invalid - there is no relationship between the antecedent (the character of the advocate) and the consequent (the validity of the argument itself).
Put more simply - what is true remains true when a fool believes it.
Latin is a dead language, people; stop trying to force it to evolve.
Idiots.
April 24, 2003 10:44 AM
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I think one of the reasons the confusion arises is that the second half of the fallacy is sometimes implicit in the way the insult is delivered.
OTOH, "if you think that, you must be an idiot" is not an ad hominem attack. It's no way to conduct a civil discussion, either, but it reverses the cause and effect of a true ad hominem attack.
Comment by: Ginger April 24,2003