Ad Hominem: How to Deal With a Personal Attack

I had a disagreement with my boss. He insisted that we should move forward on a project his way instead of mine. To make his case, he began criticizing me.

When I called him out for personal attack instead of my position, he was tongue-tied. He didn’t even realize his argument contained a common fallacy: the ad hominem.

What Is an Ad Hominem Fallacy?

Ad hominem arguments look to falsify a claim by attacking the person who’s making the claim. Since claims are true or false regardless of who makes them, the person who is making the claim is irrelevant to evaluating the claim’s truth or falsity.

For example, if Hitler claims that 2 + 2 = 4, that doesn’t automatically make the claim false. Hitler is a bad person, but that doesn’t mean that everything he says is false. Dismissing a claim simply because a bad person says it is an example of Ad hominem.

When people commit an ad hominem fallacy, they are mistaking criticism of a person with criticism of a claim or an argument. The Latin term ‘Ad hominem’ means “to the person.” When people commit an ad hominem fallacy, they’re attacking the arguer in an effort to falsify the arguer’s claim. It’s a fallacy because attacking the person can’t succeed in falsifying the claim. The truth or falsity of the…