Ad Hominem - Questions About The Notion of An ad Hominem Fallacy

Questions About The Notion of An ad Hominem Fallacy

Doug Walton has argued that ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious, and that in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue, as when it directly involves hypocrisy, or actions contradicting the subject's words.

The philosopher Charles Taylor has argued that ad hominem reasoning is essential to understanding certain moral issues, and contrasts this sort of reasoning with the apodictic reasoning of philosophical naturalism.

Read more about this topic:  Ad Hominem

Famous quotes containing the words questions about, questions, notion and/or fallacy:

    Science asks no questions about the ontological pedigree or a priori character of a theory, but is content to judge it by its performance; and it is thus that a knowledge of nature, having all the certainty which the senses are competent to inspire, has been attained—a knowledge which maintains a strict neutrality toward all philosophical systems and concerns itself not with the genesis or a priori grounds of ideas.
    Chauncey Wright (1830–1875)

    Of immortality, the soul, when well employed, is incurious. It is so well, that it is sure that it will be well. It asks no questions of the Supreme Power.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    Why should I mention Io? Why indeed?
    I have no notion why.
    —A.E. (Alfred Edward)

    I’m not afraid of facts, I welcome facts but a congeries of facts is not equivalent to an idea. This is the essential fallacy of the so-called “scientific” mind. People who mistake facts for ideas are incomplete thinkers; they are gossips.
    Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)