3 ms·

Yes, but on the other hand, fallacious reasoning is rarely the source of disagreement or controversy in a debate. At least in my experience. All you're doing by

Yes, but on the other hand, fallacious reasoning is rarely the source of disagreement or controversy in a debate. At least in my experience. All you're doing by saying "ad hominem" is shifting the focus to technical delivery of the argument rather than focusing on the real matter of the discussion. And most people forget that calling something an ad hominem attack does not mean that it's wrong. Most things which get called ad hominem are usually not, in fact -- saying "you are dumb and your arguments is wrong because of X, Y, Z" is different than saying "your argument is wrong because you are dumb" (the latter would be ad hominem, the former is merely an irrelevant statement)

cLeEOGPw 13y ago
> All you're doing by saying "ad hominem" is shifting the focus to technical delivery of the argument rather than focusing on the real matter of the discussion. I agree, that looking for logical fallacies in the argument often is a straw man in itself, which is ironic and which is the reason many are skeptical about pointing them out altogether. But in the end you can't abandon logic and talk relying only on intuition and emotions and discarding all reasoning, which would happen if people "rather focus on the matter of discussion than shift focus to technical delivery".
vladimirralev 13y ago
I think you may be confusing HN with some other place. I have literally never seen someone being called dumb or anyone being "proven" wrong for being stupid. Honestly, I think most fallacies pointed out here are fair and especially "ad hominem" which is probably the easiest to grasp. Can you find any counter-examples?
ordinary 13y ago
All you're doing by saying "ad hominem" is shifting the focus to technical delivery of the argument rather than focusing on the real matter of the discussion. I'm not sure I agree. The use of ad hominem is the shift away from the discussion proper. Calling ad hominem (or any logical fallacy) out is merely a recognition of that shift, and could be considered a (weak?) attempt at getting back on topic. When used correctly, that is.

cLeEOGPw 13y ago

> All you're doing by saying "ad hominem" is shifting the focus to technical delivery of the argument rather than focusing on the real matter of the discussion. I agree, that looking for logical fallacies in the argument often is a straw man in itself, which is ironic and which is the reason many are skeptical about pointing them out altogether. But in the end you can't abandon logic and talk relying only on intuition and emotions and discarding all reasoning, which would happen if people "rather focus on the matter of discussion than shift focus to technical delivery".

vladimirralev 13y ago

I think you may be confusing HN with some other place. I have literally never seen someone being called dumb or anyone being "proven" wrong for being stupid. Honestly, I think most fallacies pointed out here are fair and especially "ad hominem" which is probably the easiest to grasp. Can you find any counter-examples?

ordinary 13y ago

All you're doing by saying "ad hominem" is shifting the focus to technical delivery of the argument rather than focusing on the real matter of the discussion. I'm not sure I agree. The use of ad hominem is the shift away from the discussion proper. Calling ad hominem (or any logical fallacy) out is merely a recognition of that shift, and could be considered a (weak?) attempt at getting back on topic. When used correctly, that is.