It doesn't matter what makes sense to you or what makes sense to me. Bringing a person's motive into the argument is ad hominem because it turns the discussion into a discussion of the member making the argument rather than focusing on the argument itself. It is making the person offering the argument the subject of discussion that makes something ad hominem.
Nonsense. Every argument dynamic has some motive driving it. Without a motive it doesn't exist.
Commenting on what an adversary's motive might be could be a case of Poisoning the Well if negative, or simple analysis if positive. Neither makes a statement on the adversary's
character.
Methinks (as noted at the very start) you're using an extremely broad definition to comprise a great many unrelated fallacies and even non-fallacies under the umbrella of "ad hominem". But, I hasten to add this caveat, as it seems it may be necessary -- that doesn't make you a bad person.
You cannot assign a motive to me without it turning the focus of the discussion onto me. In an objective discussion, which a no ad hominem rule is intended to produce, any discussion of a person's motive, unless he/she reveals it herself, is inappropriate and illegal. There is absolutely no necessity to bring a person's motives into the discussion unless the topic is the person's motives.
Ad hominem does cover an extremely broad spectrum, but it boils down to one simple concept: discussion of the argument rather than the person making the argument.
Nope, can't agree. Any dissection and eventual understanding of an adversary's position with which one disagrees can legitimately involve an inspection of its derivation. After all any conclusion requires a bridge to get to it; questioning how those dots became connected is clearly valid analysis: "Do you believe that because ______?" That's simply a search for context, which in itself is innocuous.
Certainly that inspection
can be used destructively -- but it's not a given that it must be.
Yes I do disagree strongly that ad hom "covers an extemely broad spectrum", as does every definition that's been posted here. It means attack on the adversary's character, and that's all it means. And that's why my choice, if I had had it, in your poll would have been "None of the above".
Why? Why is the person's motive or background or anything else about the person necessary to comment on in order to discuss what the person posts as opinion or statement of fact?
Nowhere did I say it was "necessary" -- why do you want to morph what I said into something I didn't?
I simply said there is a way it can be employed innocuously -- therefore its existence isn't
automatically fallacious. It all depends on how it's used.
If I say: "Hillary Clinton's deletion of all those e-mails of course raises questions about what was in those e-mails", why is anything about me personally necessary to comment on in order to evaluate and discuss that statement?
It isn't. The conclusion would stand as valid on its own, regardless who made it.
And show evidence please for your statement that ad hominem means attack on a person's character and that's all it means. I have been teaching this stuff for a very long time now and I have NEVER seen anybody define it that narrowly. But if you can back it up. . .
Every definition that's been quoted in this thread, every last one with a single exception, that being the one in your OP.
Seems a bit strange that with common website logic references and even the dictionary defining it that way you've never seen it. Actually I've never seen it defined as broadly as your OP does.
Lemme axe you this --
I've mentioned a few times I see zero examples of ad hom in your OP poll --- how many do you see?
