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>The ad hominem is not always fallacious, for in some instances questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issu

• loewenskind 16y ago
  Ad hominem is not fallacious when the person is what you're discussing (e.g. "I think X is a political hack and damaging to the country"), but otherwise it would be (e.g. the boy in "the boy who cried wolf" lied every time he said there was a wolf. Except the last time. The village committed a logical fallacy in assuming that because he was a liar that everything he said was a lie.).
  • chc 16y ago
    No, the village people drew a logically strong inference from their analysis of the available data. They would be right in the vast majority of cases. By the thinking in your "boy who cried wolf" analogy, it's ad hominem to observe that a clock is broken, because the clock tells the time correctly twice every day. The fact is that when a meter is known to have a strong bias, it is rational to be skeptical when it gives a result in line with that bias.
    • loewenskind 16y ago
      >No, the village people drew a logically strong inference from their analysis of the available data. Wrong. They engaged in a logical fallacy, full stop. The correct response would have been for them to replace the boy with someone who wasn't so prone to lying (and for your clock example, replace or fix the clock). They must check every alarm raised from their designated "wolf watcher". Interestingly, a good usage of an ad hominem would have been the argument for replacing the boy (e.g. "It's too inefficient to use him as the watcher because he's a liar").