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Douglas Walton explains that argumentation ad hominem is an argument against the man. It is a personal attack against an arguer to refute the argument. In the abusive form the character of the arguer is attacked. These arguments are often used to attack an opponent unfairly. Walton (1996: 374).
Simon Blackburn explains that ad hominem is attempting to disprove what a person is stating by attacking the person, or less commonly by praising the person. Commonly it is a way of arguing forcefully or not, against a view without advancing the counter argument. Blackburn (1996: 24). This latter concept would be that of arguing against a held perspective without making any reasonable counter-arguments.
BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy Oxford, Oxford University Press.
WALTON, DOUGLAS (1996) ‘Informal Fallacy’, in Robert Audi, (ed), The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
February 9, 2017
Update
Nine years later there have been several template changes. The switch to Dynamic template quite significant with format. I revised this entry. The comments on this Chrome version are corrupted. Therefore, I provide an example of ad hominem to be at least somewhat true to the entry title.
Pope Chucklins: I do not want to go to that Christian event tonight, because I was working online all day.
Satire Und Theology: Chuck!!! Get off your software and quit being a boop, boop, dork and get over here and be my chauffeur, because your vehicle is newer and I do not like driving in downtown Vancouver.
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A humourous and insensitive example, but my objection does not deal with Saint Chucklins' actual fatigue. Rather when he does arrive and begins to shut down at around 11 pm, I just make sure he drinks at least one beer mug sized coffee. The physical results of that are his problem...
