Abstract
There has been little empirical research on the ad hominem argument. What there is has been carried in the tradition of the pragma-dialectic approach by investigating the reasonableness of the ad hominem argument which is determined by the discussion stage in which it is deployed (van Eemeren et al., Fallacies and judgements of reasonableness. Springer, Dordrecht, 2009). The experiment reported in this chapter investigates how convincing people find the ad hominem argument from the emerging Bayesian epistemic perspective on argumentation (Hahn and Oaksford, Psychol Rev 114:704–732, 2007), in which people are argued to be sensitive to the reliability of the source of an argument. The experiment varied source reliability, initial degree of belief in the conclusion, and whether the ad hominem was a pro or a con argument. A Bayesian account of the effect of reliability on posterior degree of beliefs after hearing the argument provided excellent fits to the data. Moreover, the results were not consistent with the pragma-dialectic approach, as no differences were observed between conditions where a discussion rule was violated and a control condition where it was not violated. However, further experimentation is required to fully establish this conclusion.
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Notes
- 1.
In this example and the next, a deterministic relationship is assumed between the conclusion and the argument, such that the conclusion guarantees the argument with probability 1 if true and probability zero if false.
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Appendix: Experimental Materials
Appendix: Experimental Materials
1.1 Abusive
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(A) (Even) After listening to him, I think it’s possible (strongly believe) that Ford cars simply (don’t) drive better.
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(B) Actually, you should be certain that they don’t drive any better.
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(A) Why do you think that?
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(B) Because how would he know? He doesn’t know the first thing about cars.
1.2 Circumstantial
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(B) I think it’s possible (highly likely) that her recommendation to use Stelcom Ltd is (not) a good one; (even though) she says that they are the only contractor in the Netherlands that can handle such an enormous job.
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(B) Well, you should be absolutely certain that her recommendation isn’t a good one.
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(A) Why do you say that?
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(B) How can we really believe her? Surely, it’s no coincidence that the company is owned by her father-in-law.
1.3 Tu Quoque
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(A) It’s possible (highly likely) he was (wasn’t) right to criticise the way in which they processed the data statistically.
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(B) Well, you should be convinced that he wasn’t right to criticise them.
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(A) What do you mean?
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(B) Because he said they should have expressed the figures as percentages. But how can he say that when his own statistics are not up to the mark.
1.4 Control
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(A) I think it’s possible (strongly believe) that her scientific integrity is (isn’t) impeccable. She says her research has always been honest and sound.
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(B) Well, you should be convinced that her integrity isn’t impeccable.
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(A) Why do you say that?
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(B) Well, how can you really believe her? She has already been caught twice tampering with her research results.
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Oaksford, M., Hahn, U. (2013). Why Are We Convinced by the Ad Hominem Argument?: Bayesian Source Reliability and Pragma-Dialectical Discussion Rules. In: Zenker, F. (eds) Bayesian Argumentation. Synthese Library, vol 362. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5357-0_3
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