Why is Ad Hominem called a fallacy, when it is instead a useful clue?

Question

The real fallacy is in calling insufficient proof inadmissible evidence. Perfectionism leads to paralysis; another fallacy is that you have to be 100% convinced before you can make an intelligent decision.

Those who want to dismiss Ad Hominem are covering up their own deficient personalities and should not be trusted. Formal logic is a fraud; it relies too much on selected connections. It begs the question, the process, and the answer.

In real life, Ad Hominem is the most valuable clue and an incentive to pick apart a self-interested argument. Like other evidence, it has to be backed up by further investigation. Only when that fails to corroborate the Ad Hominem approach can it be dismissed. For example, Reagan's failure to punish Hezbollah for massacring Marines could have been attributed to being soft on every enemy except Communists, but he refuted that line of logic when he attacked Libya.

When used towards philosophers, an example of effective Ad Hominem is that Schopenhauer's non-sequitur pessimism in "The World as Will and Idea" was caused by his bitter personal disappointments. Nietzsche saw it as a non-sequitur, but didn't see its Ad Hominem cause, perhaps because he would do the same thing with his philosophy. Worshipping the unearned power of the aristocracy, he twisted a defiant cry for freedom into a blueprint for Naziism.

Answer 1

I think you are misusing the term ad hominem -- do you mean hearsay? or circumstantial evidence?

An ad hominem argument is one which attacks the person making the argument instead of addressing the argument. I don't see how that fits into your argument.

For example, if instead of saying what ad hominem means, I had just said. "You are a dolt and have you ever cracked a dictionary in your life?" that would be an ad hominem argument. And the reason it is a fallacy is because your argument can be right or wrong whether or not you are a dolt.

Answer 2

So you're saying if I say: all A's are B's, there is an A therefore there is a B-- that argument is false because I'm a rapist? That doesn't make sense Unless you say my evidence for A's being B's isn't true, etc. Which means calling into doubt the truth of the claims.

I may have first-hand knowledge which gives creedance to the propositions. In which case I'm both arguement-formulator and testimonial witness. But you have to prize those two occupations apart. It doesn't matter that Schopenhouer was depressed in real life. If there's no basis to his claims then we can say-- look this claim is shaky, it isn't justified-- independant of him.


I understand the drive to validate ad hominem as non-fallacious. But murderous criminals Can and do happen to say true things all the time, and if we name everything he says False-- then that will be an error. For instance, my parents confused me into believing there was a santa claus. When I found out, they became malicious liars-- therefore everything they said was questionable. But if I used ad hominem on them for everything, then I would be in a ditch, homeless right now-- because much of what they said was true independant of what they have done.

Self-interest is ubiquitous. But few understand that "selfhood" isn't necessarily about individual people. We share much, we live together, our reasons and arguments only arrive and appear because we Desire them to, because they serve us in some capacity. Without that we are robots, rocks, inert matter with logical rules and no concern. That is, there's nothing inherently wrong in self-interest-- anything that claims otherwise is against life as such--- this is Nietzsche's attack on Socrates. Such a person believes faithfully in truth found in other worlds and excoriates this one. That's not philosophy, that's religion.

To say that Nietzsche is a facist is hopeless. He has only disdain for followers and herd-mentalitites. His ubermensch was a hermetic scholar, above the domain of the ruling classes. Did he prefer the noble morality to the slave morality? Yes.. but it wasn't the end of the transvaluation of morals. It's very easy to criticize someone when you don't know what they're saying. There's a fallacy for this form of reasoning as well.

Answer 3

Ad hominem = insulting the speaker, rather than their argument

I don't get how you're applying that definition of the term in your argument. Do you mean something else, perhaps, rather than ad hominem?

Answer 4

It is a fallacy because it avoids the essential content of the argument.

Answer 5

Sorry, I don't follow your argument.