Now, granted, I imagine we are all familiar with the term "ad hominem attacks" and I must admit the term didn't come to mind when I was thinking about how to describe what I have been observing recently in this forum.
Personally, I always thought of the term when someone attributed a similar idea to a very bad group (the KKK, Nazi's, etc.), and therefore the idea was bad. This is a specific form of ad hominem, if it's used against a person, but is more accurately described as an "Association fallacy."
From Wikipedia:
Now, clearly, other than direct insults, all forms of "personal attacks" as we have defined them on Board77 fit under the umbrella of ad hominem, as it's kind of the meaning of the term.
Quote: An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the man", "argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief of the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim. The process of proving or disproving the claim is thereby subverted, and the argumentum ad hominem works to change the subject.
However, I believe there is a significant number of ad hominem arguments that are currently NOT defined as "personal attacks" on b77, and that doesn't necessarily make the definition here wrong. However, it can lead to problems in debate.
I'm not very good at coming up with examples today, but i know a lot of ad hominem arguments have been flying my way over the last week, and I have objected to them strenuously .
I guess my question to the board is, do we want to allow ad hominem arguments in our debate here, or not? If not, do we need someone with authority to be able to do something about them when they threaten to derail a discussion?
The article at wikipedia is very detailed:
Ad hominem
Association fallacy