Sect. 3.4 reading - Fallacies of Presumption, Ambiguity, and Illicit Transference

fallacies of presumption

a group of informal fallacies that occur when the premises of an argument presume what they purport to prove

fallacies of ambiguity

a group of informal fallacies that occur because of an ambiguity in the premises or conclusion.

fallacies of illicit transference

a group of informal fallacies that involves the incorrect transference of an attribute from the parts of something onto the whole, or from the whole onto the parts.

four fallacies of presumption

1). begging the question,

2). complex question,

3). false dilemma (or false dichotomy),

4). suppressed evidence.

two fallacies of ambiguity

1). equivocation,

2). amphiboly

two fallacies of illicit transference

1). composition,

2). division.

begging the question (Petitio Principii)

an informal fallacy that occurs when the arguer creates the illusion that inadequate premises provide adequate support for the conclusion - by leaving out a key premise, by restating the conclusion as a premise, or by reasoning in a circle

complex question

an informal fallacy that occurs when a single question that is really two or more questions is asked, and a single answer is applied to both questions

false dichotomy

an informal fallacy that is committed when an arguer presents two nonjointly exhaustive alternatives as if they were jointly exhaustive and then eliminates one, leaving the other as the conclusion.

suppressed evidence

a fallacy that occurs when the arguer ignores relevant evidence that outweighs the presented evidence and entails a very different conclusion

equivocation

an informal fallacy that occurs because some word or group of words is used either implicitly or explicitly in two different senses

amphiboly

an informal fallacy that occurs when the conclusion of an argument depends on the misinterpretation of a statement that is ambiguous owing to some structural defect

composition

an informal fallacy that occurs when the conclusion of an argument depends on the erroneous transference of an attribute from the parts of something onto the whole

collective

an attribute is predicated collectively when it is assigned to a class as a whole

distributive predication

an attribute is predicated distributively when it is assigned to each and every member of a class

division

an informal fallacy that occurs when the conclusion of an argument depends on the erroneous transference of an attribute from a whole (or class) onto its parts (or members)