From: Emin Gun Sirer
[mailto:egs(_at_)systems(_dot_)cs(_dot_)cornell(_dot_)edu]
My terminology is correct, and your message is a simple ad
hominem.
No his argument was not an ad hominem.
An ad hominem argument is an argument of the form 'Osama Bin Laden believes X,
Osama Bin Laden is a bad person, therefore X is false and/or anyone who argues
X is a bad person'
That was not the form of argument used.
There is a little acknowledged side condition to the ad hominem fallacy. The ad
hominem argument is only a fallacy if and only if the truth of the proposition
X has no bearing on the character of Osama Bin Laden. If proposition X is, say
'that the hirabah of Al Qaeda is a Jihad' then the argument is not a fallacy of
necessity it is a fallacy of convention.
"You have not observed the criteria required to gain standing in this forum,
therefore its not worth listening to you" is a perfectly acceptable rule of
debate. It is not an acceptable move in rhetoric, but you only get to use
rhetoric after the preliminaries are completed.
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