 As we read the arguments it is crucial to keep this method in mind. They are always directed towards a more-or-less specific target: the views of some person or school. We must bear in mind that the arguments are ‘ad hominem’ in the literal Latin sense of being directed ‘at (the views of) persons’, but not ‘ad hominem’ in the traditional technical sense of attacking the (character of the) people who put forward the views rather than attacking the views themselves. They work by temporarily supposing ‘for argument’s sake’ that those assertions are true, and then arguing that if they are then absurd consequences follow—that nothing moves for example: they are ‘reductio ad absurdum’ arguments (or ‘dialectic’ in the sense of the period). Then, if the argument is logically valid, and the conclusion genuinely unacceptable, the assertions must be false after all. Thus when we look at Zeno’s arguments we must ask two related questions: whom or what position is Zeno attacking, and what exactly is assumed for argument’s sake? If we find that Zeno makes hidden assumptions beyond what the position under attack commits one to, then the absurd conclusion can be avoided by denying one of the hidden assumptions, while maintaining the position. Indeed commentators at least since Aristotle have responded to Zeno in this way.