Argumentum ad Hominem in Presidential Candidate’s Debate in Indonesia: Forms and Functions

In formal logic, ad hominem argument is fallacius, but in political debate, such argument frequently occurs. This study aims to describe the forms, message, and motivation in using argumentum ad hominem in the dabate of presidential candidates in Indonesia. This study is qualitatively approached by using pragmatics framework. The data were collected through documentation technique, derived from the broadcasted debates of presidential candidates on TV in 2019. The collected data were analyzed by the interactive model of Miles dan Huberman. Considering the fact that the arguments in political debate contains a variety of interests, the researchers applied message analysis coined by Vedung, comprising two steps, namely content analysis and function analysis. Based on data analysis, the study discovers some findings as follow; first, argumentum ad hominem practiced in the debate can be categorized into three functions, i.e.: (1) attacking the debate opponent, (2) attacking the party of debate opponent, and (3) attacking the supporters of the debate opponent. The political motivations of using argumentum ad hominem in the debate are: (1) judging or criticizing the debate opponent’s ideas, (2) cornering the debate opponent.