Critical Thinking Unit 4

Ad Hominem Fallacy — when someone attacks the arguer instead of the argument

Genetic Fallacy — when an arguer critiques the origin of a claim or argument rather than the claim or argument itself

Straw Figure or Strawman Fallacy — when someone (willfully or mistakenly) misinterprets someone else’s argument or position

Red Herring — when someone is introducing an irrelevant topic and discussing that rather than the one at hand

Irrelevant Appeal — any kind of appeal to a factor, consideration, or reason that isn’t relevant to the argument at hand

Appeal to Unqualified Authority — when we trust an authority on one subject to speak on another subject about which they have no real expertise

Appeal to Force — appeal that implies that if one does not accept the claim, they will suffer some harm

Appeal to Consequences — the mistake of trying to assess the reasonableness of an idea based on the (usually negative) consequences of accepting that idea.

Appeal to the People — appeal established on the basis that a lot of people believe the claim

Equivocation Fallacy — when the conclusion of an argument results from a double meaning of a word within the argument

Appeal to Ignorance — an argument put forth using evidence incorrectly, making bad predictions, or generalizing improperly

Slippery Slope — when one event is said to lead to some other (usually disastrous) even via a chain of intermediary events

Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy — when someone already knows which conclusion they’d like to prove and then selects evidence which supports that conclusion

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc — just because something happens after another thing, doesn’t mean that it’s caused by the first thing

Hasty Generalization — the generalization about a group of people, things, or events too quickly without enough evidence or too msall of a sample

Fallacies of presumption — when an argument rests on an unjustified assumption

False dilemma — or black or white fallacy, when it is assumed without good reason that there are fewer options than there really are

Fallacy of Burden Shifting — when one decides that someone else must prove them wrong rather than proving themself right

Syllogisms — 2 premises and 1 conclusion

Immediate Inferences — 1 premise and 1 conclusion

Independent Support — Multiple independent inferences that don’t work together to demonstrate the conclusion

Conjoint Support — Mutually dependent premises to support the conclusion