ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to reverse that presumption and insist that the nature of the arguer is an essential part of the argument, not a pollutant. It concentrates especially on the agent/act ratio as illuminative of ad hominem arguments. An argumentative response that is ad hominem certainly encourages the audience toward an agent/act interpretative orientation. Moreover, certain audiences may have predispositions toward interpreting argumentative discourse through an interpretive lens that features or seeks out an agent/act structure of motives. Based on Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s insights, four distinct phenomena are characteristic of a prototypical ad hominem exchange: the original arguer; his/her original argument; the respondent arguer and the respondent’s argument, alleging some sort of ad hominem flaw. The traditional conception of ad hominem argument rejected the unity of act and agent, insisting that qualities of the arguer have little to do with the quality of the argument.
