What do all these terms mean?
I keep hearing various terms used on this website that I do not understand. Please help me. I will start with this. What does ad hominim mean?
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Ad Hominem/Argumentum ad hominem: Latin for "to the man". It is seen as a fallacy, in which the user attempts to detract from the truth by pointing out negative traits about the person they are debating with. For example: Person 1: No bachelors are married Person 2: Fuck you, you stupid, ugly, piece of diarrhea shit! All bachelors are married, are you a fucking retard!?!? Person 2 has committed the ad hominem fallacy. Ad hominems should never be used in formal debates. 1
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More specifically, ad hominems are usually used by amateur debaters to try and invalidate a person's argument by attacking the character of the person. For example, let's observe this conversation: "Hitler: Jews are inferior because they're non-Aryans! Person A: This is clearly false. Person B: Why do you say so? Person A: That's because Hitler was an evil, narcissistic racist! Person B: But that's argumentum ad hominem! Even if Hitler is evil, narcissistic and a racist, that is still no reason to say that what Hitler say is false." Now, the proper way to invalidate what Hitler said would be to say that race is no reason for a group to be considered inferior. Furthermore, it would be a hasty generalisation to say all Jews are inferior because there would probably be some Jews who are particularly talented and even superior to Germans. Thus, what Hitler say is false. |
