Editing Ad hominem (section)

== History ==
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[[File:Aristotle Altemps Inv8575.jpg|thumb|[[Aristotle]] (384–322&nbsp;BC) is credited with raising the distinction between personal and logical arguments.{{sfnm|1a1=Walton|1y=2001|1p=208|2a1=Tindale|2y=2007|2p=82}}]]

The various types of {{lang|la|ad hominem}} arguments have been known in the West since at least the ancient Greeks. [[Aristotle]], in his work ''[[Sophistical Refutations]]'', detailed the fallaciousness of putting the questioner but not the argument under scrutiny.{{sfn|Tindale|2007|p=82}} His description was somewhat different from the modern understanding, referring to a class of [[sophistry]] that applies an ambiguously worded question about people to a specific person. The proper refutation, he wrote, is not to debate the attributes of the person ({{lang|la|solutio ad hominem}}) but to address the original ambiguity.{{sfn|Nuchelmans|1993|p=43}} Many examples of ancient non-fallacious {{lang|la|ad hominem}} arguments are preserved in the works of the [[Pyrrhonism|Pyrrhonist]] philosopher [[Sextus Empiricus]]. In these arguments, the concepts and assumptions of the opponents are used as part of a dialectical strategy against them to demonstrate the unsoundness of their own arguments and assumptions. In this way, the arguments are to the person ({{lang|la|ad hominem}}), but without attacking the properties of the individuals making the arguments.{{sfnm|1a1=Walton|1y=2001|1p=207–209|2a1=Wong|2y=2017|2p=49}} This kind of argument is also known as "argument from commitment".

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Italian [[Galileo Galilei]] and British philosopher [[John Locke]] also examined the argument from commitment, a form of the {{lang|la|ad hominem}} argument, meaning examining an argument on the basis of whether it stands true to the principles of the person carrying the argument. In the mid-19th century, the modern understanding of the term {{lang|la|ad hominem}} started to take shape, with the broad definition given by English logician [[Richard Whately]]. According to Whately, {{lang|la|ad hominem}} arguments were "addressed to the peculiar circumstances, character, avowed opinions, or past conduct of the individual".{{sfn|Walton|2001|pp=208–210}}

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Over time, the term acquired a different meaning; by the beginning of the 20th century, it was linked to a [[logical fallacy]], in which a debater, instead of disproving an argument, attacked their opponent. This approach was also popularized in philosophical textbooks of the mid-20th century, and it was challenged by Australian philosopher [[Charles Leonard Hamblin]] in the second half of the 20th century. In a detailed work, he suggested that the inclusion of a statement against a person in an argument does not necessarily make it a fallacious argument since that particular phrase is not a premise that leads to a conclusion. While Hablin's criticism was not widely accepted, Canadian philosopher [[Douglas N. Walton]] examined the fallaciousness of the {{lang|la|ad hominem}} argument even further.{{sfn|van Eemeren|Grootendorst|2015|pp=615–626}} Nowadays, except within specialized philosophical usaɡe, use of the term {{lang|la|ad hominem}} signifies a straight attack at the character and ethos of a person, in an attempt to refute their argument.{{sfn|Walton|2001|p=210}}