Subject: (urth) Urth Digest, Vol 76, Issue 7

From: Nick Lee <starwaterstrain at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2010 07:20:01 +0000

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 12:45 AM, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes <danldo at gmail.com>
wrote:

>It is not legitimate.  It is a logical fallacy to judge the validity
>of an argument by referring to the motivations of the person who makes
>the argument.

An ad hominem is an attack on the character or impartiliaty of the arguer
rather than his position. In the discussion you're talking about, Wright's
thesis is attacked on textual grounds. Then the explanation given for
Wright's error is his supposed atheism (though I am not sure how we know
he's an atheist).

Even if Wright's thesis were attacked on the basis of his atheism, as it is
framed in the discussion, this is not an attack on his character. No one is
saying there is something wrong with being an atheist. It's not a personal
attack.

And even if this were a personal attack, that would not make it inherently
fallacious: "The *argumentum ad hominem* is not always fallacious, for in
some instances questions of personal conduct, character, motive, etc., are
legitimate and relevant to the issue." pg 170. Douglas Walton,* Informal
Logic: A Practical Approach*.

It might amuse you to know that Wright is himself a user of reader response
theory. The idea of reader response theory is that individual readers bring
their own experiences and motivations to readings and use those to create
interpretations. I expect this particular information might shed light on
the issue as a whole.

Nicholas Goodman
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From: Nick Lee <starwaterstrain at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2010 16:16:23 +0000

On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 1:20 AM, Nick Lee <starwaterstrain at gmail.com> wrote:

> fallacious: "The *argumentum ad hominem* is not always >fallacious, for in
> legitimate and relevant to the issue." pg >170. Douglas Walton,* Informal
> I really shouldn't have posted at 1 AM. The title of Walton's book is *Informal
Logic: A Pragmatic Approach*.

I'll also take this opportunity to clarify, as I think I might have been
unclear on one point. Dan'l Danehy-Oakes seems to think others in this
thread are guilty of* ad hominem circumstantial* rather than *ad hominem
abuse*. I didn't explain the difference before. I'll direct you to Wikipedia
as you probably don't have a copy of Walton lying around.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

This fallacy is not present in previous discussions because this reasoning
is not being used to attack the validity of the argument. Rather it is an
after-the-fact discussion of his biases. You can certainly discuss someone's
biases as long as it is not being used as your sole means of attacking the
argument. Even in you did, this would still not be a fallacy necessarily
because: "Where the source taking a position seeks to convince us by a claim
of authority, or personal observation, observation of their circumstances
may reduce the evidentiary weight of the claims, sometimes to zero"
(Wikipedia). Also Walton, quoted above (another version of which I now see
is actually quoted by Wikipedia at the start of their article).

If anyone would like to read up on fallacies,
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/is a good resource.

Nicholas Goodman <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#cite_note-five-3>
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