Ad Hominem Arguments¶
Walton, D. (1998). Ad Hominem Arguments. University of Alabama Press.
Cited by¶
3 citations across 3 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Motivated Reasoning
- Treating a motive attribution as a refutation converts a diagnostic tool into an ad hominem, which is a common way it is misused.
This sourceAnalyses the circumstantial and bias forms of ad hominem, in which an arguer's stake is offered in place of an answer to the argument, and sets out when that move is a legitimate credibility challenge rather than a refutation.
- Treating a motive attribution as a refutation converts a diagnostic tool into an ad hominem, which is a common way it is misused.
Domain-specific¶
- Ad Hominem
- These subtypes recur across the standard informal-logic textbooks (Copi, Hurley, Govier), though Walton — whose Ad Hominem Arguments (1998) is the book-length treatment — found in surveying the logic textbooks that their accounts conflict rather than converge, and his own classification adds bias as a basic type alongside the abusive and circumstantial forms, treating tu quoque and poisoning the well as derivatives of them
This sourceWalton's book-length normative treatment of the personal-attack argument, classifying it into five subtypes — abusive (direct), circumstantial, bias, poisoning the well and tu quoque, the last two derived from the first three — and surveying the logic textbooks in chapter 2, where he finds their accounts of the ad hominem conflict rather than converge. Copi, Hurley and Govier are named from the textbooks themselves, not from Walton. Walton's thesis that no ad hominem argument is inherently fallacious - its legitimacy turns on the argumentative context, including contexts where character and credibility are themselves at issue; the article's specific three-condition test is a restatement, not Walton's own wording. A book-length argumentation-theoretic treatment applying the ad hominem as a diagnostic across political, legal and press discourse; the ranking of ad hominem among the relevance-fallacy literature is the article's own. Walton's legitimacy boundary: no ad hominem argument is inherently fallacious, and whether source-criticism is reasonable depends on the argumentative context, notably where character or credibility is itself the matter in dispute; the three-condition test as worded here is the article's restatement.
- These subtypes recur across the standard informal-logic textbooks (Copi, Hurley, Govier), though Walton — whose Ad Hominem Arguments (1998) is the book-length treatment — found in surveying the logic textbooks that their accounts conflict rather than converge, and his own classification adds bias as a basic type alongside the abusive and circumstantial forms, treating tu quoque and poisoning the well as derivatives of them
- Genetic Fallacy
- Origin can be excellent evidence when it predicts what is being evaluated: chain of custody can bear on authenticity; contamination history can bear on measurement reliability; financial dependence can bear on otherwise unverifiable testimony; production process can bear on safety
This sourceWalton's monograph establishes the general point - source- and motive-based argument is defeasible but genuinely probative rather than always fallacious; of the four illustrations only financial dependence, his bias and circumstantial ad hominem material, is drawn from it.
- Origin can be excellent evidence when it predicts what is being evaluated: chain of custody can bear on authenticity; contamination history can bear on measurement reliability; financial dependence can bear on otherwise unverifiable testimony; production process can bear on safety
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