Recall a basic lesson from Nietzsche, that every philosophy is basically a confession. He suggested that we don’t begin with reason. We begin with fear, pain, desire, or resentment. Then we build arguments to justify what we already want to believe. That’s one of the main insights in The... Genealogy of Morality. Nietzsche also suggests that what we usually call an ad hominem—criticizing the person instead of the argument—is not always wrong. If ideas come from their personal psychology, then understanding the person can help explain the belief. Of course Nietzsche overstated this. And you can turn the logic back on him. You could say, fine, you are making an argument about how people make arguments, so what does that say about you? Fair enough. But the basic idea is useful nonetheless. A lot of grand ideas, especially the ones about human behavior, come from something personal. So if you want to understand a belief system, look at who holds it. Not just what they believe, but why. Now, this doesn’t apply to everything. When you’re talking about physics or astronomy or whatever, there probably isn’t some deep emotional backstory behind an argument about the distance between stars. But when it comes to human behavior, there’s usually something underneath. People don’t build these big intellectual systems for no reason. There’s often a personal story hiding in there.show more

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Very true. This is not necessarily a way of discrediting ideas but of providing additional context and understanding.

Perhaps one of his innovations was to point out bad emotions as motives for philosophies, but Plato used love of physical beauty as a way of trying to draw people into love of ideal forms of beauty and truth. Self-knowledge might require honestly understanding one’s motivations.

True..........life experience helps shape what we believe to a certain extent

Except Nietzsche was wrong.

Depends on the person. I am reasonable and logical. Most people do operate from a place of fear or a desire

Exactly why its so dangerous to copy someones belief system without examining whether you'd actually want to be them or not

People who study astronomy are definitely diverting their attention as far away from themselves as possible. Even the physical sciences have fear, pain, desire, and resentment. Think of competing cosmologies, but only one Nobel Prize.

@bronzeagemantis is this true?

Personal histories can play an explanatory role in the development of a belief or system of beliefs. But they can never prove or refute the truth value of a belief system. The ad hominem is a fallacy because of the fact just stated above. While you can call someone an idiot if their beliefs are false (by definition), you cannot judge someone's beliefs are false because they are an idiot, nor true because of their genius. Similarly, you can call someone a Nazi if their beliefs are a combination of nationalist, socialist, and antisemitic (by definition). But you cannot judge someone's beliefs are false because they are nationalist, socialist, and antisemitic.