logic fallacies

Fallacy

Failure in reasoning or a defective argument containing faulty, misleading, or deceptive reasoning

Formal Fallacy

Arguments that are defective because of their logical structure, or form

Informal Fallacy

Bad reasoning that is often very persuasive

Ad hominem - abusive

Employs insulting character

Ad hominem - circumstantial

Attack motives for making an argument

Ad hominem - two wrongs make a right

Accuses the other of hypocrisy

Appeal to the People - Direct

Makes no argument; a person who commits a direct appeal to the people fallacy is not trying to support a conclusion; speaker tries to whip up the listener(s) into a mob mentality

Appeal to the People - Indirect

Arguments; indirect version of direct; speaker or writer tries to establish a conclusion

Invoking Pity

Tries to instill sympathy and uses this sympathy as the premise to persaude the listener to accept the conclusion

Invoking Force (appeal of force)

The person posing an argument warns the listener that some harm will come to them if they do not accept the argument

Invoking Sexuality

Making an appeal to sex or one’s own context of family history or tradition, and make a conclusion that because of the persuasive emotional appeal of sexuality or the nostalgia of past tradition, you should accept the conclusion as true

Invoking Tradition

Making an appeal to sex or one’s own context of family history or tradition, and make a conclusion that because of the persuasive emotional appeal of sexuality or the nostalgia of past tradition, you should accept the conclusion as true

Invoking Ignorance

Occurs when someone argues that since something cannot be shown to be true, it must be false—or, since something cannot be shown to be false, it must be true

Unfit authority

Based on the argument from authority, which is an argument where you base your conclusion on what a given authority has said

Begging the question

Occurs when an arguer uses some type of linguistic trick to conceal the questionable nature of a premise

Composition

Where one reasons illegitimately from the properties of a part to the properties of the whole

False Cause

When the cited cause is not likely to have produced the effect in question

Suppressed Evidence

Occurs when an arguer deliberately ignores evidence that undermines the conclusion of his argument

Complex Question

Occurs when one asks a question that presumes the existence of a set of circumstances

Slippery Slope

Variant on the false cause fallacy; occurs when someone claims that a certain event will trigger a chain of consequences that are undesirable

Accident

Occurs when you misapply a rule, generally accepted as true, to a specific case where the rule does not apply

False Dichotomy

Occurs when an argument has a disjunction as a premise

Hasty Generalization

Based on the argument form of inductive generalization

Division

Exact opposite of composition; you reason that since something is true of the whole, it must be true of the part

Missing the Point

Features a conclusion that is not relevant to the premises

Weak Analogy

Based upon an argument from analogy

Straw Man

Occurs when a person is responding to an argument made by the first person

Red Herring

Occurs in response to an argument made by someone else