kubuntu-users Digest, Vol 45, Issue 99

[tom bell]

> --- On Tue, 10/14/08, Ignazio Palmisano <ignazio_io at yahoo.it> wrote:
> 
>> > From: Ignazio Palmisano <ignazio_io at yahoo.it>
>> > Subject: Re: [OT on OT: ad personam vs ad hominem][OT rude or not, a different opinion] -Re: Beta 8.10 released
>> > To: "Kubuntu Help and User Discussions" <kubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
>> > Date: Tuesday, October 14, 2008, 10:59 PM
>> > 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.
>> > 
> 
> This is an invention of Shopenhauer. The classical term is ad hominem, when personal characteristics are used as argument against some statement (thesis).
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
> 
> I do not remember Shopenhauer in details to argue about.
> 
> If you like it to be right I don't mind  ;-)  But in my posting I used a question (do you get the point now), which was in the middle of the debate ... and I do not see there any kind of argument (ad hominem or ad personam), which may lead you to this conclusion.
> In fact the subjective interpretation of this question, may let you think I'm insulting the person ... but I would say this goes too far and is/was a subject of discussion initiated by another question "What do you mean exactly?"
> 
> Regards
> 
> 
If you ever take a course on debate you will find that indeed "ad
hominem" is listed among the classic debate styles and is eschewed as a
personal attack not worthy of being used in a serious debate.

Tom Bell

“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when
we created them.”
-- Albert Einstein, Physicist (1879-1955)