🧵Short Thread:🪡
🏷 “What is an ad hominem?”
📝 I delete my tweets so if you want to keep this then either archive or take notes.
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I keep seeing people misuse the term “ad hominem”.
What is it?
✅It refers specifically to a line of reasoning that uses a personal attack as a premise within the argument as a reason to accept a conclusion.
For example:

P1 - this persons is a smelly idiot.
————————————
C - you shouldn’t believe their argument.
✅This is an ad hominem
❌However an insult that is not given as a premise in an argument but merely accompanies an argument, is not an as hominem.
For example:

“I’m now going to refute this douche bag....”
P1 - A > B
P2 - A
————————————
C - B
❌This is not an ad hominem. It’s bad etiquette at most.
📝The key distinction is:
✅ in the 1st argument the insult was one of the reasons to accept the conclusion
❌ in the 2nd it wasn’t