Philosophy

Appeal to pity

This fallacy occurs when emotional appeal is used to support a claim instead of relevant facts.

Appeal to force (Ad Baculum) [the stick] {appeal to fear}

This fallacy occurs when force, coercion, or threat of force is used in place of reason in an attempt to justify a conclusion.

Appeal to popularity (Ad Populum or bandwagon fallacy)

This fallacy occurs when a claim is assumed to be true or good simply because a belief is popular or because many people are doing something.

Appeal to authority (Ad Verecundiam)

This fallacy occurs when a claim is asserted to be true based on an assumed authority (or expertise) on the issue at hand.

Personal attack fallacy (Ad Hominem)

This is the fallacy of attacking the person or the persons character making the argument rather than the argument itself in an attempt to discredit it.

Tu Quogue (You too fallacy - a version of Ad Hominem)

This fallacy occurs when it is asserted that an argument is flawed because the person making the argument is not acting consistently with the claim of the argument (hypocrisy). (diversion)

Straw Man fallacy (Ignoratio Elenchi)

This fallacy occurs when substituting a position or an argument with a distorted misrepresented or exaggerated version of the position or argument in an attempt to make it easier to defeat it.

Appeals to authority - 2

1) the authority must be identified

2) the authority must be generally recognized by the experts in the field

3) the particular matter in support of which an authority is cited must lie within that person’s field of expertise

4) the field must be one in which there is genuine knowledge

5) there should be a consensus among the experts in the field

Appeals to anecdotal evidence

• An anecdote is a shot story about a real incident or person, or something of interest, usually with a singular theme or topic.

• Anecdotes are typically no different than the stories told among friends.

• One story however is rarely adequate to support general conclusions.

• general conclusions about an entire class cannot be supported without good evidence (methodically gathered information)

Appeals to ignorance

• This fallacy occurs when the speaker asserts that a statement is true because it has not yet been proven false (or reversely that a statement is false because it has not yet been proven true).

Slippery slope fallacy

• In a slippery slope argument a course of action is rejected because with little or no evidence the speaker insists that such an action will lead to a chain reaction resulting in an undesirable end or ends.

• The slippery slope involves the acceptance of a succession of events without adequate evidence that such a course of events will happen.

Causal fallacies (false cause)

post hoc, cause and effect common cause.

post hoc

fallacious reasoning in which because something comes before an event that something must therefore be the cause of that event.

confusing cause and effect

fallacious reasoning in which an effect is identified as a cause, and the cause is identified as the effect.

Common cause

Fallacious reasoning in which a causal relation between a and b is mistakenly thought to exist when in fact both a and b are cause by a third factor ( c )