Modifying Class Object

[Gabriel Genellina]

En Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:06:02 -0300, Alf P. Steinbach <alfps at start.no>  
escribió:

> * Steven D'Aprano:
>> On Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:04:08 +0100, Alf P. Steinbach wrote:
>>
>>> You thought you cold do a bit of ad hominem attack.
>>  That phrase you keep using, "ad hominem"... it doesn't mean what you  
>> seem to think it means.
>>  An ad hominem attack is not when somebody makes a criticism of you  
>> personally. It is when somebody says something along the lines of  
>> "Don't pay any attention to Alf, he doesn't know what he's talking  
>> about, he's a <whatever>".
>
> <url: http://www.tfd.com/ad+hominem>
> ad hominem Latin [æd ˈhɒmɪˌnɛm]
> adj & adv
> 1. directed against a person rather than against his arguments
                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 2. based on or appealing to emotion rather than reason Compare ad rem  
> See also argumentum ad hominem
>
> In response to ...
>
>  > >> No idea. Nothing I know of can solve it [failure of article  
> propagation].
>  >
>  > Not sure, but perhaps it's possible to mail directly to gmane?
>
> ... Steve Holden wrote:
>
> <quote>
> Is there *any* problem you don't have a fatuous answer for?
> </quote>
>
> Which doesn't have anything to do with any subject matter discussed, not  
> even the PS that he was replying to (which absolutely didn't warrant  
> that description or any negative response), but which does convey an  
> impression of a person.

This doesn't make it an ad hominem fallacie. This is just criticism  
directed to your person, that you may like or not. It would be a fallacie  
if it were intended to dismiss your argument.

> PS: in order to recognize various forms of fallacies the following is a  
> quite useful resource: <url: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/>.  
> I just typed "fallacies" in the Firefox address bar. - DS

 From the above site:

"this fallacy involves two steps. First, an attack against the character  
of person making the claim [...] Second, this attack is taken to be  
evidence against the claim or argument the person in question is making  
(or presenting)."

That second part is missing in S. H. posts.

-- 
Gabriel Genellina