Ad Hominem examples in literature?

[dlim1992]

Hey guys I have an upcoming presentation for my AP English class on Ad Hominem arguments.

I understand the term and its uses, but I can not seem to find a single example from an actual form of literature.

If you guys could give me some examples from a book, essay, or poem that would help me out so much

Thanks guys
Daniel

[mortalterror]

"Ad hominem" is a term used for argument. Try the term "invective" and you may have more success. Archilochus, Ovid, Callimachus, Shakespeare, Juvenal, and Janus have all made excellent contributions to this field.

[JBI]

Read Silas Marner, though I'm with Mortal on this one, it really is difficult to come up with argument like that, unless it is one of those long boring 18th century "novels of ideas" or some such, but even so, it is possible, when there is an argument in court or something.

[Etienne]

Try the Second Manifest of Surrealism by Breton...

[JCamilo]

Voltaire of course, while sometimes he will hide beneath the many Pangloss, others he will just name the victim and move on...

[dlim1992]

Thank you guys for all the help

I have been looking under Voltaire and that seemed to help a lot

[Pecksie]

Quevedo's poetry often attacked his enemies (as in the sonnet entitled 'To a Nose'). So did Donne's satires. Those in the know often had a fairly good idea of who the poems were about, even if the texts didn't 'name names'.

Most 'romans à clef', or novels depicting thinly veiled characters from real life, will have some sort of 'ad hominem' attack. Caroline Lamb wrote a novel called 'Glenarvon' whose sole purpose was to fling mud at Lord Byron's already shaky reputation. I haven't read it, but it's said to be fun.

And, you know what? Dante's Divine Comedy (which is wonderful at so many levels) is also full of that kind of attack. Basically, everyone he disapproved of ended up with his face inside a pool of excrement or burning tar, and a fiend's trident stuck in his backside.

[dlim1992]

thanks again for the help, I found some pretty good examples in Breton's surrealism book actually

I was also wondering if this clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O4y-G5idbE

is an ad hominem example?

thanks guys

[Drkshadow03]

I would also remind you that Ad hominem and insults are not the same thing. I am not entirely sure, but I suspect many of the sources you are looking at and being recommend are really just insults and not necessarily Ad Hominems.

"Of course we cannot trust his opinion that abortions are morally wrong, after all, he is a priest" would be an ad Hominem.

"I find my priest's viewpoint that abortions equate to murder because a fetus is a living entity to be untenable. Recent scientific studies have shown that the fetus has minimal brain activity in the womb, which is an imperative category in determining human status. After all, we do not freak out if we squash a fly, yet these studies have shown that the activity in a fetus brain is of a lower level than flies. Likewise, Philosopher X says something cannot be called living if that something cannot exist on its own. The fetus clearly cannot survive at this stage without being attached to the mother; I am of the view that it is no different that an extra piece of skin growing inside me. I can only conclude that my priest is a sexist moronic jerk who like most idiots that occupy this world hasn't really considered the problems beyond a new jerk reaction to his own personal beliefs."

Now whether this is a convincing argument or not, especially since I made up scientific studies for the purpose of illustration, I'll leave up to you. Whether it violates other logical fallacies is beside the point right now. However, I am pretty certain this would NOT be an Ad Hominem. Although it contains an insult at the end, insults are NOT the same as ad Hominems.

The speaker clearly responds to the priest's argument by offering his own points of rebuttal. The insult isn't the entire rebuttal, but rather is just an extra attack tacked on at the end of the actual substance.

Ad Hominems are a fallacy of irrelevance, which means the person using them raised issues that have nothing to do with addressing the argument, but using say an insult or the origins of the arguer to rebut an argument instead of addressing the argument itself.

[Gustavo L.]

An insult would most likely be an ad personam argument. I think the term was coined by Schopenhauer:



A last trick is to become personal, insulting, rude, as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand, and that you are going to come off worst. It consists in passing from the subject of dispute, as from a lost game, to the disputant himself, and in some way attacking his person. It may be called the argumentum ad personam, to distinguish it from the argumentum ad hominem, which passes from the objective discussion of the subject pure and simple to the statements or admissions which your opponent has made in regard to it. But in becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack to his person, by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character.

Here's an etext of his book "The Art of Controversy", which may be useful. I quoted from the third part, "Strategems": http://ebooks.du.ac.in/etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/controversy/index.html

[JCamilo]

Yeah, Dante enemies in hell is not ad hominem, he usually place them where their sins would lead (he could be saying something false), but usually they are in the right place for the right sin... Quevedo in other hand, was a master to mock others indeed, but not always much worried with building any argumentation.
Voltaire in other hand is perfect, he often writes trying to prove his point, when he presents one of his "enemies" he ridiculise them by something irrelevant, so the ideas of this person will be considered wrongly also.

[Pecksie]

Yeah, Dante enemies in hell is not ad hominem, he usually place them where their sins would lead (he could be saying something false), but usually they are in the right place for the right sin... Quevedo in other hand, was a master to mock others indeed, but not always much worried with building any argumentation.
Voltaire in other hand is perfect, he often writes trying to prove his point, when he presents one of his "enemies" he ridiculise them by something irrelevant, so the ideas of this person will be considered wrongly also.

The thing is, the 'sins' were usually political --- or, rather, the persons were not placed in hell for their actual sins (whatever those might have been) but for having displeased Dante or his political allies in some way (although there are exceptions to this, e.g. Paolo and Francesca).