It seems to me that there are plenty of other obvious reasons why people might make ad hominem attacks. For instance:
They might expect them to influence other people in a direction they like. (I would guess that this motivation is substantially more common than desire to provoke an angry response.)
They might be angry (or otherwise upset) themselves, for whatever reason, and respond as angry people often do by attacking in any way that presents itself.
They might be failing to distinguish between an idea and the person presenting it, and be only dimly aware that what they’re doing is an ad hominem attack at all.
They might be hoping to provoke (not an angry response but) reflection on the part of the person being attacked (“wow, I had no idea anyone would react so strongly to what I said; could there be something wrong with it?”). I doubt this works very often, but there might be cases where it’s a reasonable last resort.
In this particular case I think the first and last of those are the most likely motives.
I’m not talking about the motivation, I am talking about the outcome. We can’t read people’s minds, we can only observe actions and their consequences. The outcome of an ad hominem attack is to provoke an angry and otherwise emotional response in the person attacked.
Abusive statements to me by their definition are meant to provoke an angry response.
and
OrphanWilde using terms like “you are creepy” to me are ad hominem attacks intentionally meant to provoke an angry response.
and I don’t know how to interpret those other than in terms of motivation and not only outcome. But if you’ve now changed your position from “ad hominem abuse is intended to provoke an angry response” to “ad hominem abuse is likely to provoke an angry response” then we have no disagreement on that any more.
The original question was actually not about the intentions of ad hominem attacks in general but about whether OrphanWilde was admitting to trolling. Trolling is defined in terms of its intention and not merely its effects, so your change of position here doesn’t alter my opinion that OrphanWilde was probably not trolling.
To me, taking an action highly likely to provoke an angry response indicates an intentional desire to provoke a negative response. This should also be read in light of OrphanWilde’s other actions on this thread. I don’t want to say that one ad hominem attack necessarily constitutes trolling. I perceive trolling as about several acts that together constitute a sum of evidence of trolling, i. .e, taking actions highly likely to provoke an angry response, and knowing in advance that one’s actions are of the type likely to provoke a negative response.
Why?
It seems to me that there are plenty of other obvious reasons why people might make ad hominem attacks. For instance:
They might expect them to influence other people in a direction they like. (I would guess that this motivation is substantially more common than desire to provoke an angry response.)
They might be angry (or otherwise upset) themselves, for whatever reason, and respond as angry people often do by attacking in any way that presents itself.
They might be failing to distinguish between an idea and the person presenting it, and be only dimly aware that what they’re doing is an ad hominem attack at all.
They might be hoping to provoke (not an angry response but) reflection on the part of the person being attacked (“wow, I had no idea anyone would react so strongly to what I said; could there be something wrong with it?”). I doubt this works very often, but there might be cases where it’s a reasonable last resort.
In this particular case I think the first and last of those are the most likely motives.
I’m not talking about the motivation, I am talking about the outcome. We can’t read people’s minds, we can only observe actions and their consequences. The outcome of an ad hominem attack is to provoke an angry and otherwise emotional response in the person attacked.
What you wrote before was (emphasis mine):
and
and I don’t know how to interpret those other than in terms of motivation and not only outcome. But if you’ve now changed your position from “ad hominem abuse is intended to provoke an angry response” to “ad hominem abuse is likely to provoke an angry response” then we have no disagreement on that any more.
The original question was actually not about the intentions of ad hominem attacks in general but about whether OrphanWilde was admitting to trolling. Trolling is defined in terms of its intention and not merely its effects, so your change of position here doesn’t alter my opinion that OrphanWilde was probably not trolling.
To me, taking an action highly likely to provoke an angry response indicates an intentional desire to provoke a negative response. This should also be read in light of OrphanWilde’s other actions on this thread. I don’t want to say that one ad hominem attack necessarily constitutes trolling. I perceive trolling as about several acts that together constitute a sum of evidence of trolling, i. .e, taking actions highly likely to provoke an angry response, and knowing in advance that one’s actions are of the type likely to provoke a negative response.