AP Lang - Rhetorical Fallacies

Ad Hominem

Ad Hominem

“Against the Man”, personal attacks

Begging the Question

Circular Reasoning

• Assuming the conclusion

• Restating the premise

• Assuming the conclusion is true

• Assuming the conclusion is true in a different way

Either or Reasoning

Assuming extremes/polar opposites and not considering any alternatives.

Emotional Appeal

Too many emotions/pathos.

False Analogy

When 2 cases are not parallel enough to lead readers to accept a connection between them.

Generalization

Writer bases a claim upon an isolated example and applies it to all instances

Non-Sequitur

“It does not follow”. One statement isn’t logically connected to another.

Post hoc Ergo proctor hoc

“After this therefore because of this”. Assuming that because one thing occurred after another, it must have occurred as a result of it.

Red Herring

When an irrelevant issue is raised as an attempt to distract

Straw Man

Arguing against a claim that nobody actually holds.

Bandwagon Appeal/Ad Populum

Claim that an idea is right just because a lot of people agree with it.

Force and Fear/Ad Baculum

Proponent threatens audience to accept argument. Fear mongering.

Appeal to Celebrity(Authority)/Ad Verecundiam

Appeal to an authority figure irrelevant to the argument

Pity/Ad Misericordium

Appeal to accept an argument out of pity for the arguer

Non Disproof

Argument should be accepted because no one has proved it wrong, not because anyone has proved it right

Undistributed Middle

Parts of a premise may or may not overlap. Middle term is undistributed in the sense that all instances of a conclusion are also instances of the premise.

• ex. “All whales have hair, all humans have hair, all whales are human”