Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Ad hominem (Latin for 'to the person'), short for argumentum ad hominem, refers to several types of arguments that are usually fallacious.Often currently this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than the substance of the argument itself.
A tone argument (also called tone policing) is a type of ad hominem aimed at the tone of an argument instead of its factual or logical content in order to dismiss a person's argument. Ignoring the truth or falsity of a statement, a tone argument instead focuses on the emotion with which it is expressed.
Henry Johnstone Jr. (1920–2000) was an American philosopher and rhetorician known especially for his notion of the "rhetorical wedge" and his re-evaluation of the ad hominem fallacy. He was Professor of Philosophy at Pennsylvania State University (1952–1984) and began studying Classics in the late 1970s. [1]
Tu quoque [a] is a discussion technique that intends to discredit the opponent's argument by attacking the opponent's own personal behavior and actions as being inconsistent with their argument, so that the opponent appears hypocritical.
But not all ad hominem arguments constitute fallacies. It is a common and reasonable practice in court, for example, to defend oneself against an accusation by casting doubt on the reliability of the witnesses. The difference between fallacious and justified ad hominem arguments depends on the relevancy of the character of the attacked person ...
Aikin poses an analysis of ad hominem tu quoque arguments that establishes the conditions for determining relevance of hypocrisy. [6] He has (with Robert Talisse and John Casey) proposed a variety of straw man fallacies: the representational (straw) man, the selectional (weak) man, the hollow man, and the iron man.
Bulverism is a type of ad hominem rhetorical fallacy that combines circular reasoning and the genetic fallacy with presumption or condescension. The Bulverist assumes a speaker's argument is invalid or false and then explains why the speaker came to make that mistake or to be so silly (even if the opponent's claim is actually right) by ...
From a logical and argumentative point of view, whataboutism is considered a variant of the tu-quoque pattern (Latin 'you too', term for a counter-accusation), which is a subtype of the ad-hominem argument.