Terms to know Debate/Logic

Strawman fallacy

Where in an argument where someone changes, exaggerates, or breaks down an opponent's point into a fake, weaker version. Although a strawman’s point can be reasonable and not a fallacy if it’s not framed to ridicule or use emotionally charged absolute language to describe the consequences to the original argument.

Ex:

Teen: "Can I stay out until 10 PM tonight?"

Parent: "If I let you go, you will just want to be out all night every night doing whatever you want!" (Parent changes a single request into a wild, runaway scenario).

Red herring fallacy gaslighting dichotomy

Introduces a new topic under the guise of being relevant, to divert attention away from the original topic.

Question: "Did you break the living room window with your baseball?

Red Herring Answer: "Look at how clean the backyard is! I spent all afternoon raking the leaves for you." (The clean backyard is nice, but it completely avoids answering for the broken window).

Jointly exhaustive

Refers to a set amount of options making up the entirety of all possible options. Options can overlap as a purely jointly exhaustive situation doesn’t need to simultaneously have only mutually exclusive options within it, unless it’s a dichotomy.

Dichotomy

A sharp division that splits a single concept into two distinct, non-overlapping parts. Like two sides of the same coin, where there is no middle ground, rather there is heads and tails with no ambiguity and the two options are mutually exclusive(no overlapping of options possible) while jointly exhaustive(makes up all available options possible).

Ex:
A light switch can be on or off, but can’t be on or off at the same time, nor are there other options aside from on or off, and on or off both are both in the same domain of the states of a light switch.

False dichotomy

Makes it seem like you are pushed into an either/or scenario, but in reality there is hidden nuance rather than two binary choices, and is no longer jointly exhaustive as there are are other options not mentioned in the framing of a false dichotomy. It’s jointly exhaustive in reality due to other options not being considered, yet is not jointly exhaustive in the framework of the binary claim as the scenario is not limited by two choices, rather a higher amount of choices possibly.

gaslighting

Hasty generalization

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Mutually exclusive

When a set amount of options/events are not able to happen at the same time

Ex:

Light switch being on or off, but can’t be both at once

You roll a die, and it can only fall on one of the 6 sides at once

Not mutually exclusive

When a set amount options/events are able to happen at the same time

Ex:
High iq and low rationality, you can be both at once, even if it seems contradicting on the surface, although whether it “seems” to be contradictory or not has no bearing on the meaning of mutually exclusive or not.

Fallacy fallacy

fallacy