Logical Fallacies: Definitions, Examples, and Identification

Appeal to pity

A fallacy in which someone tries to win support for an argument or idea by exploiting one's opponent's feelings of pity or guilt.

Appeal to prejudice

Arguing by appealing to the personal likes (preferences, prejudices, predispositions, etc.) of others in order to have an argument accepted.

Appeal to tradition

A claim in which a thesis is deemed correct on the basis of correlation with past or present tradition.

Arguments from analogy

Declare that because two items are the same in one respect they are the same in another.

Argument from authority

A form of argument in which the opinion of an authority on a topic is used as evidence to support an argument.

Argument from omniscience

Occurs when a person argues that 'all people know that' or 'everyone believes that' in order to prove a point.

Attributing False Causes

The argument offers an explanation, based on a temporal ordering of the events, that confuses co-occurrence with causality.

Equivocation

Using an ambiguous term in more than one sense, thus making an argument misleading.

False dilemma

An informal fallacy, since there is an issue with its premises, and namely with the assumption that both of the following conditions are true.

Non Sequitur

A statement that does not follow logically from or is not clearly related to anything previously said.

Logical fallacy

An incorrect conclusion derived from faulty reasoning.

Ad Hominem

A general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument.

Red Herring

A fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue.

Slippery Slope

A fallacy in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question.

Straw Man

A fallacy committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position.

Bandwagon

A fallacy in which a threat of rejection by one's peers (or peer pressure) is substituted for evidence in an argument.

Begging the Question

A fallacy in which the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or (directly or indirectly) assume that the conclusion is true.

Genetic Fallacy

A line of reasoning in which a perceived defect in the origin of a claim is taken to be evidence that discredits the claim itself.

Burden of Proof

A fallacy in which the burden of proof is placed on the wrong side.

Poisoning the Well

This sort of reasoning involves trying to discredit what a person might later aim by presenting unfavorable information (be it true or false) about the person.

Spotlight

A fallacy committed when a person uncritically assumes that all members or cases of a certain class or type are like those that receive the most attention or coverage in the media.