Notes on Logic:

Informal, Deductive, and Inductive

Ad Hominem and Insults

Tuesday, June 27, 2006 10:46:00 AM

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The ad hominem fallacy has many subtle forms, but the main varieties are attacking the character or cirumstances of a person advancing an argument in order to shed doubt on the argument.

Lynne Truss writes of George Bernard Shaw's displeasure with T.E. Lawrence's use of the semicolon by citing this letter of Shaw's to Lawrence:

You practically do not use semicolons at all. This is a symptom of mental defectiveness, probably induced by camp life.

(Lynne Truss,`Eats, Shoots & Leaves (New York: Gotham, 2004) 118.)

Most persons would claim Shaw commits the ad hominem fallacy. In truth, though, Shaw is not attempting to prove anything. He is simply stating his displeasure of Lawrence's use of the semicolon, and is spiritedly (or perhaps more accurately, insultingly) assessing a cause (not a reason) for the careless writing.

Most logic, speech, and English teachers do not realize how rarely genuine fallacies occur in normal discourse. The presence of an argument is a necessary condition for there to be a fallacy.

Conditional Statements Not FallaciesMore on Non-Fallacies

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