[OT on OT: ad personam vs ad hominem][OT rude or not, a different opinion] -Re: Beta 8.10 released

[Lisi Reisz]

On Tuesday 14 October 2008 21:59:56 Ignazio Palmisano wrote:
> tom bell wrote:
> >> Fake politeness is useless, in this we agree. But if you disagree with
> >> someone else's ideas, you attack the ideas, not the person. That's not
> >> fake politeness, that's respect. (it's not meant to be a scolding, I'm
> >> not referring to what has been said; the technique of attacking a person
> >> whose ideas we don't share is old and well known, the exact term escapes
> >> me - is it "ad personam"?)
> >
> > ad hominem
> >
> > Tom Bell
> >
> :D out of curiosity I've reread Schopenhauer definitions of the
>
> arguments ad personam and ad hominem. To me, it seems that ad hominem is
> the technique of using against the opponent the same arguments the
> opponent has put forward, while ad personam corresponds to try and
> discredit one's point by making personal attacks, either to let the
> audience believe that such a bad person can only be in the wrong or to
> make the opponent angry and therefore more susceptible to other
> dialectic tricks. So I maintain I was right in my naming ;)
>
> I.

For those further west whose brains might still be functioning (mine has gone 
to sleep):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

Goodnight!  
Lisi (UTC+1)