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The term I'm looking for is ad hominem. "this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of

The term I'm looking for is ad hominem. "this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself." tripletao chose to attack the character of a journalist instead of engaging with the arguments.

astine 6y ago
Uh, no. "You made a bad argument and therefore you are stupid" is not an ad-hominem argument "You are stupid and therefore your argument is bad" _is_ an ad-hominem argument. The OP's comment clearly follows the pattern of the former, not the later, so it is not an ad-hominem. Bear in mind that tripletao's thesis is clearly that the NY article is a bad faith essay. That's his conclusion, not his premise.
- anoncareer0212 6y ago
  This is one of the most intense HN nerdsnipes I've seen in a while, reminds me of code reviews :P TL;DR: google.com -> define ad hominem -> "(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining" -> go back to the quote we're arguing about, it reads: "so the reporter is either stupid or disingenuous" -> looks like those are words directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining y'all are mistaking doing a technical word by word breakdown of an argument and picking which words are which logical fallacies with, well, the definition of ad hominem
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - astine 6y ago
    You might prefer a looser definition of ad-hominem, but I think that the technical definition holds value. This looser definition reads like a means of implying that the poster's intent was different that what it was.
    - anoncareer0212 6y ago
      It is mildly humorous that we've gotten this far in and you're telling me "hm I don't like the definition in the dictionary, we should pick something more technical" (???) I have a CS and law degree and IMHO the divide here is the CS people tend to believe "ad hominem" has a technical definition beyond, well, the definition
      - TulliusCicero 6y ago
        > "(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person >> rather << than the position they are maintaining" You seem to have missed the operative word there: rather. Saying that someone's argument is bad so they must be real dumb means you're saying "A (the reasoning attack) implies B (character attack)", not "B (character attack) means I don't have to even bother with A". The latter is an ad hominem, the former is not. An ad hominem here would be, "jesus I already know this author is so dumb/bad that I don't even have to bother addressing any of their arguments". "This author's reasoning is awful, so clearly they're dumb/bad" is simply not the same thing.
      - astine 6y ago
        You don't have to be particularly astute to know that the term 'ad-hominem' refers to a particular informal logical fallacy. (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/, fallacy 13) The definition used in Webster is a more colloquial definition based on usage. English dictionaries usually take a descriptivist rather than prescriptivist approach to their work. However, that usage is based on a misusage of the earlier definition. To argue that someone's argument is wrong because of who they are is a logical fallacy, and something people actually do quite a lot. The term for that and as far as I know the only term for that, is 'ad-hominem.' To attack someone's character instead of something they wrote is usually not considered very nice, but is not a logical fallacy (unless we're talking about the abusive form of ad-hominem, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here.) Given that the former needs to called out on occasion, that that one can use other language to call out the later (just say 'personal attacks'), it makes sense that reserving the term 'ad-hominem' for the former use makes practical sense. Even if you don't agree with my reasoning that it's better to reserve the term to refer to the logical fallacy, many people really do use the term exclusively to refer to the logical fallacy and don't use the dictionary definition you listed. Citing a dictionary to resolve a language usage dispute is a bit of a dodge because dictionaries are typically descriptivist when these disputes are inherently prescriptivist (or at the very least stipulative.)If people are getting confused by what you are saying, it's better to clarify than to die on the hill of what the correct definition of a word should be. All of that is beside that fact that the reason people get upset about this issue--about the definition of ad-hominem--is that people using the later definition are often performing a bit of equivocation. They are using the later definition, which does not refer to a logical fallacy, to imply that a logical fallacy has occurred. This is a sort of slippery and dishonest debating tactic and I think that it rightly upsets people. If you did not intend to be deceptive, that's all well and good, but understand that that's a big part of why people are getting upset with you. edit: Removed the first sentence in which I accused that guy of arguing in bad faith. There's nothing else in this comment that is objectionable, AFAICT.
  - TulliusCicero 6y ago
    Dear God, the number of people who think any kind of insult constitutes an ad hominem would be hilarious if it wasn't so depressing. Ad hominem means you're replacing a reasoning based argument with character attacks. Throwing in character attacks on top of a reasoning based argument -- especially when the insults are just used as a conclusion -- is not what an ad hominem is. This is important, because the fact that this is what an ad hominem is, is why it's considered a logical fallacy. "Your argument is dumb because of X & Y, and also I think you suck" is not a logical fallacy. There is no fallacious thinking there. "I think you suck, therefore I don't even have to bother refuting X & Y, they're automatically wrong because of how much you suck" clearly is a logical fallacy: just because someone sucks, doesn't mean any possible reasoning of theirs is automatically invalid.
    - astine 6y ago
      It took me a moment to realize that the poster is trying to use a different definition of ad-hominem which isn't actually a logical fallacy. He's just criticizing the fact that the OP is bothering to criticize article's author at all. Personally, I don't like that usage because it cheapens the definition of ad-hominem and makes it harder to call someone out when they make an actual logical fallacy.
      - anoncareer0212 6y ago
        good lord I'm sorry it took that long, I thought were all pivoting off OP noting the argument would have been much better without the attacks
      - TulliusCicero 6y ago
        It's a sort of bait and switch tactic. They're relying on the notion that an ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy, which everyone agrees is bad, an invalid method of argument. Except that they're using a uselessly vague definition of ad hominem that amounts to "any insult", which is extra stupid because we already have a word for that: insult. So why even use the Latin, then, other than to make yourself sound fancy?
tripletao 6y ago
I doubt the character of the journalist because of the disingenuous nature of his arguments, not the other way around. To be clear, do you think Alexander actually intended to conceal a "creditable reason for negative coverage" by deleting his blog? If so, why didn't he e.g. request deletion from the Internet Archive, to at least make the reporter's job noticeably harder? In any case, Alexander surely understands how the Streisand effect works, and that a big public gesture that makes information slightly less available (but still available with modest effort) tends to disseminate that information, not conceal it. So do you really think that was his goal? And do you think the journalist really believed what he wrote? I don't, and I think he was disingenuously reaching for stuff to smear Alexander with. I think that's ugly. Finally, I didn't intend to express anger in my last paragraph. I intend to express caution, that anyone dealing with a journalist should consider the possibility that the journalist is out to cause them serious personal harm. This is true regardless of whether that's deliberate and targeted based on their opinions (which I suspect, based on the inconsistent application of the NYT's policy on anonymity, but which I agree no one can prove), or just out of habit (which is fairer I suppose, but doesn't make the harm any less).
- SquishyPanda23 6y ago
  First, thanks for responding. I really didn't intend for my comment to derail a discussion so far into the weeds. > I doubt the character of the journalist because of the disingenuous nature of his arguments, not the other way around. I believe you experienced it that way. But I don't believe that was communicated well. IMO you intended to make a case against the article but ended up actually make a case against the journalist without addressing any of the article's substantive points. That was the context of my original comment. That is, to me, the comment reads as if the insults are themselves the case you're making against the article. Maybe other people didn't read it that way. For example, the reporter obviously has access to several of SSC posts. If the reporter believed that deleting the blog caused it to be forever lost to history, then he couldn't possibly have written this piece. So obviously he's aware that at least some of the controversial content of SSC is still accessible. In fact, he believes that enough of the content is accessible to write an entire long-form New Yorker article about the controversial content. So surely he must believe that enough of the content is available to write an NYT article about the content. So I'm not sure what the existence of the Internet Archive is supposed to say about his character. It doesn't seem to impact his argument in any way, because it's possible to simultaneously know about the Internet Archive and also believe Alexander deleted his blog to dodge/mitigate negative press. > do you think Alexander actually intended to conceal a "creditable reason for negative coverage" by deleting his blog? I honestly have no idea. I don't follow the blog. I think it's possible he wanted less scrutiny if his name was going to be released. I believed Alexander's reasoning about the deletion when I read them when this first made the rounds on HN. > And do you think the journalist really believed what he wrote? Yes, absolutely. I also believe Alexander believed what he wrote in all his blog posts. I don't think there's a reason to assume bad faith on either party. Journalists have flaws like everybody else, but I think they generally believe in what they do. > reaching for stuff to smear Alexander with Again, I don't know anything really about Alexander or SSC, but personally I find this a bit hard to believe. I also don't think it can be inferred from the article. And more to the point for the (IMO extremely boring) ad-hominem debate is: even if he was deliberately looking for things to smear him with, it's still an ad hominem to make the case against the journalist for having an axe to grind. The journalist can both have an axe to grind and also be genuinely saying truthful things. > I didn't intend to express anger Fair enough, my apologies. > that anyone dealing with a journalist should consider the possibility that the journalist is out to cause them serious personal harm My natural tendency is to bristle at this. I get that journalists do sometimes cause harm. I also get that you want to be cautious about anything you say that might end up circulated in a major paper. What troubles me is that this fits in with an overall anti-journalist narrative that I've seen a lot on HN recently and in tech in general. For that reason, my preference is to focus on the content of this particular article and focus less on the angle that this piece might be part of a larger attempt of journalistic nefariousness.
TulliusCicero 6y ago
No, they engaged the arguments, and then also made a character attack based on their reasoning. If you, in the midst of a counter-argument, point out that someone was lying in their original argument, calling them a liar is not an ad hominem. It's a conclusion.

astine 6y ago

Uh, no. "You made a bad argument and therefore you are stupid" is not an ad-hominem argument "You are stupid and therefore your argument is bad" _is_ an ad-hominem argument. The OP's comment clearly follows the pattern of the former, not the later, so it is not an ad-hominem. Bear in mind that tripletao's thesis is clearly that the NY article is a bad faith essay. That's his conclusion, not his premise.

anoncareer0212 6y ago
This is one of the most intense HN nerdsnipes I've seen in a while, reminds me of code reviews :P TL;DR: google.com -> define ad hominem -> "(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining" -> go back to the quote we're arguing about, it reads: "so the reporter is either stupid or disingenuous" -> looks like those are words directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining y'all are mistaking doing a technical word by word breakdown of an argument and picking which words are which logical fallacies with, well, the definition of ad hominem
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- astine 6y ago
  You might prefer a looser definition of ad-hominem, but I think that the technical definition holds value. This looser definition reads like a means of implying that the poster's intent was different that what it was.
  - anoncareer0212 6y ago
    It is mildly humorous that we've gotten this far in and you're telling me "hm I don't like the definition in the dictionary, we should pick something more technical" (???) I have a CS and law degree and IMHO the divide here is the CS people tend to believe "ad hominem" has a technical definition beyond, well, the definition
    - TulliusCicero 6y ago
      > "(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person >> rather << than the position they are maintaining" You seem to have missed the operative word there: rather. Saying that someone's argument is bad so they must be real dumb means you're saying "A (the reasoning attack) implies B (character attack)", not "B (character attack) means I don't have to even bother with A". The latter is an ad hominem, the former is not. An ad hominem here would be, "jesus I already know this author is so dumb/bad that I don't even have to bother addressing any of their arguments". "This author's reasoning is awful, so clearly they're dumb/bad" is simply not the same thing.
    - astine 6y ago
      You don't have to be particularly astute to know that the term 'ad-hominem' refers to a particular informal logical fallacy. (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fallacies/, fallacy 13) The definition used in Webster is a more colloquial definition based on usage. English dictionaries usually take a descriptivist rather than prescriptivist approach to their work. However, that usage is based on a misusage of the earlier definition. To argue that someone's argument is wrong because of who they are is a logical fallacy, and something people actually do quite a lot. The term for that and as far as I know the only term for that, is 'ad-hominem.' To attack someone's character instead of something they wrote is usually not considered very nice, but is not a logical fallacy (unless we're talking about the abusive form of ad-hominem, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here.) Given that the former needs to called out on occasion, that that one can use other language to call out the later (just say 'personal attacks'), it makes sense that reserving the term 'ad-hominem' for the former use makes practical sense. Even if you don't agree with my reasoning that it's better to reserve the term to refer to the logical fallacy, many people really do use the term exclusively to refer to the logical fallacy and don't use the dictionary definition you listed. Citing a dictionary to resolve a language usage dispute is a bit of a dodge because dictionaries are typically descriptivist when these disputes are inherently prescriptivist (or at the very least stipulative.)If people are getting confused by what you are saying, it's better to clarify than to die on the hill of what the correct definition of a word should be. All of that is beside that fact that the reason people get upset about this issue--about the definition of ad-hominem--is that people using the later definition are often performing a bit of equivocation. They are using the later definition, which does not refer to a logical fallacy, to imply that a logical fallacy has occurred. This is a sort of slippery and dishonest debating tactic and I think that it rightly upsets people. If you did not intend to be deceptive, that's all well and good, but understand that that's a big part of why people are getting upset with you. edit: Removed the first sentence in which I accused that guy of arguing in bad faith. There's nothing else in this comment that is objectionable, AFAICT.
- TulliusCicero 6y ago
  Dear God, the number of people who think any kind of insult constitutes an ad hominem would be hilarious if it wasn't so depressing. Ad hominem means you're replacing a reasoning based argument with character attacks. Throwing in character attacks on top of a reasoning based argument -- especially when the insults are just used as a conclusion -- is not what an ad hominem is. This is important, because the fact that this is what an ad hominem is, is why it's considered a logical fallacy. "Your argument is dumb because of X & Y, and also I think you suck" is not a logical fallacy. There is no fallacious thinking there. "I think you suck, therefore I don't even have to bother refuting X & Y, they're automatically wrong because of how much you suck" clearly is a logical fallacy: just because someone sucks, doesn't mean any possible reasoning of theirs is automatically invalid.
  - astine 6y ago
    It took me a moment to realize that the poster is trying to use a different definition of ad-hominem which isn't actually a logical fallacy. He's just criticizing the fact that the OP is bothering to criticize article's author at all. Personally, I don't like that usage because it cheapens the definition of ad-hominem and makes it harder to call someone out when they make an actual logical fallacy.
    - anoncareer0212 6y ago
      good lord I'm sorry it took that long, I thought were all pivoting off OP noting the argument would have been much better without the attacks
    - TulliusCicero 6y ago
      It's a sort of bait and switch tactic. They're relying on the notion that an ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy, which everyone agrees is bad, an invalid method of argument. Except that they're using a uselessly vague definition of ad hominem that amounts to "any insult", which is extra stupid because we already have a word for that: insult. So why even use the Latin, then, other than to make yourself sound fancy?

tripletao 6y ago

I doubt the character of the journalist because of the disingenuous nature of his arguments, not the other way around. To be clear, do you think Alexander actually intended to conceal a "creditable reason for negative coverage" by deleting his blog? If so, why didn't he e.g. request deletion from the Internet Archive, to at least make the reporter's job noticeably harder? In any case, Alexander surely understands how the Streisand effect works, and that a big public gesture that makes information slightly less available (but still available with modest effort) tends to disseminate that information, not conceal it. So do you really think that was his goal? And do you think the journalist really believed what he wrote? I don't, and I think he was disingenuously reaching for stuff to smear Alexander with. I think that's ugly. Finally, I didn't intend to express anger in my last paragraph. I intend to express caution, that anyone dealing with a journalist should consider the possibility that the journalist is out to cause them serious personal harm. This is true regardless of whether that's deliberate and targeted based on their opinions (which I suspect, based on the inconsistent application of the NYT's policy on anonymity, but which I agree no one can prove), or just out of habit (which is fairer I suppose, but doesn't make the harm any less).

SquishyPanda23 6y ago
First, thanks for responding. I really didn't intend for my comment to derail a discussion so far into the weeds. > I doubt the character of the journalist because of the disingenuous nature of his arguments, not the other way around. I believe you experienced it that way. But I don't believe that was communicated well. IMO you intended to make a case against the article but ended up actually make a case against the journalist without addressing any of the article's substantive points. That was the context of my original comment. That is, to me, the comment reads as if the insults are themselves the case you're making against the article. Maybe other people didn't read it that way. For example, the reporter obviously has access to several of SSC posts. If the reporter believed that deleting the blog caused it to be forever lost to history, then he couldn't possibly have written this piece. So obviously he's aware that at least some of the controversial content of SSC is still accessible. In fact, he believes that enough of the content is accessible to write an entire long-form New Yorker article about the controversial content. So surely he must believe that enough of the content is available to write an NYT article about the content. So I'm not sure what the existence of the Internet Archive is supposed to say about his character. It doesn't seem to impact his argument in any way, because it's possible to simultaneously know about the Internet Archive and also believe Alexander deleted his blog to dodge/mitigate negative press. > do you think Alexander actually intended to conceal a "creditable reason for negative coverage" by deleting his blog? I honestly have no idea. I don't follow the blog. I think it's possible he wanted less scrutiny if his name was going to be released. I believed Alexander's reasoning about the deletion when I read them when this first made the rounds on HN. > And do you think the journalist really believed what he wrote? Yes, absolutely. I also believe Alexander believed what he wrote in all his blog posts. I don't think there's a reason to assume bad faith on either party. Journalists have flaws like everybody else, but I think they generally believe in what they do. > reaching for stuff to smear Alexander with Again, I don't know anything really about Alexander or SSC, but personally I find this a bit hard to believe. I also don't think it can be inferred from the article. And more to the point for the (IMO extremely boring) ad-hominem debate is: even if he was deliberately looking for things to smear him with, it's still an ad hominem to make the case against the journalist for having an axe to grind. The journalist can both have an axe to grind and also be genuinely saying truthful things. > I didn't intend to express anger Fair enough, my apologies. > that anyone dealing with a journalist should consider the possibility that the journalist is out to cause them serious personal harm My natural tendency is to bristle at this. I get that journalists do sometimes cause harm. I also get that you want to be cautious about anything you say that might end up circulated in a major paper. What troubles me is that this fits in with an overall anti-journalist narrative that I've seen a lot on HN recently and in tech in general. For that reason, my preference is to focus on the content of this particular article and focus less on the angle that this piece might be part of a larger attempt of journalistic nefariousness.

TulliusCicero 6y ago

No, they engaged the arguments, and then also made a character attack based on their reasoning. If you, in the midst of a counter-argument, point out that someone was lying in their original argument, calling them a liar is not an ad hominem. It's a conclusion.