The Structure of Ad Hominem Dialogues

The paper proposes a new perspective on modelling ad hominem (AH) techniques in a dialogue. The approach is built upon the following assumptions: (i) that ad hominem is not an inferential, but undercutting structure; (ii) that it can be a non-fallacious dialectical technique in some communicative contexts; and (iii) that critical questions in Walton’s AH scheme can be used to determine strategies of defending against AH attack. We aim to achieve two goals in this paper: first, to represent the deep ontological structure of dialogues with the speaker’s character attacks and defense; and second, to design a game AdHD in which a personal attack, and defense against it, are legitimate dialogue moves.