I really do.
Suzan Zaner @szaner15
Ad hominem attacks are not an argumentSupreme Dark Lord @voxday
They literally are. That’s why it is called argumentum ad hominem. It is also a logical fallacy, but that’s beside the point.
That smug, self-satisfied air they all manage to blithely convey while erroneously “correcting” people never ceases to make me want to erect vast pyramids comprised entirely of average-sized skulls across the landscape.
UPDATE: the exchange above was apparently insufficient warning to midwits here on the blog.
No they’re not. Logical fallacies are NOT arguments.
You’re flat-out wrong. Argumentum ad hominem is both an argument and a logical fallacy.
You shouldn’t make them because they don’t address the argument made by the other person, and VD, with your self-professed superior intelligence, you should know that.
Whether you should or should not make a form of argument is irrelevant to whether it is an argument or not. Furthermore, thanks to my well-established superior intelligence, what you are referring to is a debate, not an argument. A debate usually requires a reference to an argument made by another, an argument does not.
One shouldn’t have to insult someone, pointing out the flaws in someone else’s arguments is all that is needed to show them and anyone watching that they stupid.
Aristotle said you were wrong 2,500 years ago. Your position is not merely wrong, it is outdated by millennia.