Determining the Fallacy and Non-Fallacy of the Ad Hominem Argument

The article presents a scheme for how fallacy or non-fallacy can be determined in the ad hominem argument. First I focus on the theoretical side of the ad hominem argument — its definition, how fallacy and non-fallacy is understood, its importance for legal argumentation, and the philosophical background of my considerations. Then I present 4 criteria: genuineness, time, construction and significance, which yield 11 specific types of ad hominem argument and can help determine fallacy or non-fallacy. Furthermore, several examples are presented from the scheme and go to show that ad hominem argument is a mostly non-fallacious type of argument (in 7 out of 11 cases).