Logical Fallacies

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44 Terms

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What is a logical fallacy?
roughly, an error of reasoning
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Formal Fallacies (Deductive Fallacies)
not a valid deductive argument
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Detuctive argument
to be “valid” it must be absolutely impossible for both its premises to be true and its conclusion to be false.
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inductive arguments
lend support to their conclusions, but even if their
premises are true then that doesn’t establish with 100% certainty that their conclusions are
true
-All inductive arguments, even good ones, are therefore
deductively invalid, and so “fallacious”
in the strictest sense.
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fallacies of relevance
rely on premises that aren’t relevant to the truth
of the conclusion
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fallacies of ambiguity
manipulate language in misleading ways
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fallacies of presumption
contain false premises, and so fail to
establish their conclusion
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Ad Hominem (Personal Attack)
focus not on the evidence for a view but on the character of the person advancing it; they seek to discredit positions by discrediting those who hold them
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Bandwagon Fallacy
committed by arguments that appeal to the growing popularity of an
idea as a reason for accepting it as true. They take the mere fact that an idea suddenly attracting adherents as a reason for us to join in with the trend and become adherents of the idea ourselves
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Fallacist’s Fallacy
involves rejecting an idea as false simply because the argument offered for it is fallacious
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Fallacy of Composition
the fallacy of inferring from the fact that every part of a whole
has a given property that the whole also has that property
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Fallacy of Division
It is committed by inferences from the fact that a whole has a property to the conclusion that a part of the whole also has that property
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Gambler’s Fallacy
the fallacy of assuming that short-term deviations from probability will be corrected in the short-term
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Genetic Fallacy
committed when an idea is either accepted or rejected because of its source, rather than its merit.
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Irrelevant Appeals
attempt to sway the listener with information that, though persuasive, is irrelevant to the matter at hand
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Appeal to Antiquity / Tradition
assume that older ideas are better, that the fact that an idea has been around for a while implies that it
is true
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Appeal to Authority
an argument from the fact that a person judged to be an authority
affirms a proposition to the claim that the proposition is true
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Appeal to Consequences
an attempt to motivate belief with an appeal either to the good
consequences of believing or the bad consequences of disbelieving
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Appeal to Force / argumentum ad
baculum
an attempt to persuade using threats
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Appeal to Novelty
assume that the newness of an idea is evidence of its truth
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Appeal to Pity
attempts to persuade using emotion—specifically, sympathy—rather than evidence
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Appeal to Popularity
suggest that an idea must be true simply because it is widely held
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Appeal to Poverty
committed when it is assumed that a position is correct
because it is held by the poor
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Appeal to Wealth
committed by any argument that assumes that someone or
something is better simply because they are wealthier or more expensive
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Moralistic Fallacy
moves from statements about how things
ought to be to statements about how things are; it assumes that the world is as it should be
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Naturalistic Fallacy
moves from descriptions of how things are to statements of how things ought to be
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Red Herring
is a fallacy of distraction, and is committed when a listener attempts to divert an arguer from his argument by introducing another topic
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Weak analogy
rest on a comparison. Their logical structure is this:
(1) A and B are similar.
(2) A has a certain characteristic.
Therefore:
(3) B must have that characteristic too.
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Accent Fallacies
fallacies that depend on where the stress is placed in a word or sentence
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Equivocation Fallacy
committed when a term is used in two or more different senses
within a single argument
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Straw Man Fallacy
misrepresents a position in order to make it appear weaker
than it actually is, refutes this misrepresentation of the position, and then concludes that the real position has been refuted.
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Affirming the Consequent
(1) If A then B
(2) B
Therefore:
(3) A
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Arguing from Ignorance
infer that a proposition is true from the fact that it is not known to
be false.
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Begging the Question / Circular Reasoning
its conclusion is among its premises, if it assumes (either explicitly
or not) what it is trying to prove.
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Complex Question Fallacy
committed when a question is asked (a) that rests on a
questionable assumption, and (b) to which all answers appear to endorse that assumption.
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Cum Hoc Fallacy
committed when it is assumed that because two things occur together, they must be causally related. This, however, does not follow; correlation is possible without causation.
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False Dilemma / Bifurcation Fallacy
when someone is asked to choose between two options when there is at least one other option available.
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Hasty Generalisation Fallacy
draws a general rule from a single, perhaps atypical, case.
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‘No True Scotsman’ Fallacy
a way of reinterpreting evidence in order to prevent the
refutation of one’s position. Proposed counter-examples to a theory are dismissed as irrelevant solely because they are counter examples, but purportedly because they are not
what the theory is about.
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Post Hoc Fallacy
committed when it is assumed that because one thing occurred
after another, it must have occurred as a result of it. Mere temporal succession, however, does not entail causal succession. Just because one thing follows another does not mean that it was caused by it.
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Slippery Slope Fallacy
falsely assume that one thing must lead to another. They begin by
suggesting that if we do one thing then that will lead to another, and before we know it we’ll be
doing something that we don’t want to do. They conclude that we therefore shouldn’t do the
first thing. The problem with these arguments is that it is possible to do the first thing that they
mention without going on to do the other things; restraint is possible.
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Sweeping Generalisation Fallacy
applies a general statement too broadly.
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Subjectivist Fallacy
is committed when someone resists the conclusion of an argument not by questioning whether the argument’s premises support its conclusion, but by treating the conclusion as subjective when it is in fact objective.
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Tu Quoque Fallacy
committed when it is assumed that because someone else has done a thing there is nothing wrong with doing it.