Fallacies

a defect in an argument but the defect is anything other than merely having false premises.

Parts and structure of a statement

the parts of a statement

Categorical Preposition : “All dogs are mammals.”

  • Subject : Topic (Dogs)

  • Predicate: Says something about the Subject (Mammals)

  • copula: Connecting Word (Are)

  • quantifier: “All, None, Some”

Categorical Proposition

A proposition that relates two classes, or categories.

  • Quality and Quantity

    • Quality : whether the proposition is AFFIRMING something or DENYING

      1. Affirming: Members of the subject ARE included in the predicate.

      2. Negative: Members of the subject ARE NOT included in the predicate.

    • Quantity: Refers to HOW MUCH of the subject class is included in the predicate

      1. Universal: All or Nothing; Relates ALL Subjects are related

      2. Particular: Some; Relates to a partial number of the subjects

  • Distribution of Terms- How distributed the subject or the predicate are to their counter

    • Distributed:

    • Undistributed:

  1. (A) All S are P

    • Universal

    • Affirming

    • Subject

  2. (E) No S are P

    • Universal

    • Negative

    • Both

  3. (I) Some S are P

    • Particular

    • Affirming

    • neither

  4. (O) Some S are not P

    • Particular

    • Negative

    • Predicate

Informal Fallacy

Error in the Content of the Argument : Ratatouille with Pizzas are Great

  1. Fallacies of Relevance

    • the premises are not logically relevant to the conclusion

      1. Appeal to Force (argumentum ad baculum)

        • the argument in some way THREATENS the listener (replaces the evidences)

      2. Appeal to Pity (argumentum ad misericordiam)

        • to support a conclusion by ENVOKING PITY, rather than by supplying evidence that is actually relevant to the conclusion.

      3. Appeal to the People (argumentum ad populum)

        • the cause of the listener’s acceptance of the conclusion is that they are made to feel like they are a PART OF or WANT TO BE PART something special

          1. DIRECT: the speaker DIRECTLY appeals to, or excites the emotions of the listener(s) to accept the conclusion

          2. Indirect; Bandwagon: speaker implies to the listener(s) that they will be left out or left behind if they do not agree with the speaker. Usually, this involves pointing out that “everyone else is doing it/believes it”.

          3. Indirect; Appeal to Vanity: This puts in the listener’s mind the idea that, if they believe the conclusion, they will be JUST LIKE this desirable person, or they will HAVE this desirable feature too!

          4. Indirect; Snoberry / Snob: the conclusion with being in an elite class or a lucky member of a select few.

      4. Argument Against the Person (argumentum ad hominem): This fallacy is committed whenever, someone, rather than providing evidence for their view, merely resorts to attacking their listener instead.

        • Abusive: rather than supplying REASONS for why their opponent is wrong, instead resorts to directly verbally abusing the other.

        • Circumstantial: instead resorts to pointing out circumstances that make it MORE LIKELY that their opponent would be asserting the conclusion that they are asserting.

        • “You Too”, tu quoque: merely tries to make that person seem like a hypocrite.

      5. Accident : committed whenever someone misapplies a general rule to one of the cases that is an exception.

      6. Straw Man: attacks some WEAKER, DISTORTED VERSION of their opponent’s argument

      7. Missing the Point: This fallacy is committed whenever someone takes certain premises which support ONE particular conclusion, and—rather than draw THAT conclusion—they instead draw a DIFFERENT (but somewhat related) conclusion instead; and it is one that the premises do NOT support.

      8. Red Herring: whenever someone responds to their opponent by changing the subject to something completely different.

  2. Fallacies of Weak Induction: the premises only WEAKLY support the conclusion.

    1. Appeal to Unqualified Authority (argumentum ad verecundiam)

      • someone proposes that some conclusion is true because someone who is NOT an authority on the subject SAID it was true.

    2. Appeal to Ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam)

      • this fallacy occurs when someone uses their own IGNORANCE about something as evidence for some CONCLUSION.

    3. Hasty Generalization (converse accident)

      • This fallacy is committed whenever someone draws a conclusion about a WHOLE group after examining only SOME of the members of that group.

    4. False Cause

      • This fallacy is committed whenever someone bases a conclusion upon the imagined existence of a causal connection that probably does not exist.

        1. Coincidence (post hoc ergo propter hoc) ]

          • This occurs whenever someone observes one event followed by another, and then concludes that the first event CAUSED the second

        2. Correlation (non causa pro causa)

          • This occurs whenever someone mistakes CORRELATION for CAUSATION.

        3. Oversimplified Cause

          • This occurs whenever some effect is the result of a fairly complicated system or chain of causes, but the observer selects only a small PART of that causal system and mistakes it for the ENTIRE cause.

        4. Gambler’s Fallacy

          • This occurs whenever someone assumes that two independent events of random chance are connected because the events are both a part of the same game.

    5. Slippery Slope

      • This fallacy is committed whenever someone concludes something based on an assumption about a chain-reaction that they think will occur—but the chain-reaction is actually (contrary to their assumption) very unlikely.

    6. Weak Analogy

      • This fallacy is committed whenever a conclusion is drawn about something because it is similar to something else.

  3. Fallacies of Presumption: the premises do NOT provide INDEPENDENT evidence for the conclusion.

    1. Begging The Question: This occurs when the conclusion is already assumed to be true

      • Missing Key Premises: arguments that beg the question come in the form of enthymemes, where the crucial premise is left out.

      • Conclusion Restates the Premise : This gives the illusion that something has been “proved” when in reality it is merely the case that the same thing is being said twice in a row.

      • Circular Reasoning: This is when a chain of inferences, or several steps, reasons in such a way that the last step ends up proving the initial assumption

    2. Complex Question

      • This is when a question is proposed as if a “yes” or “no” or some other short or one-word answer would suffice, when a longer, clarifying answer is actually needed. This is due to the fact that the question being asked is actually TWO questions disguised as one.

    3. False Dichotomy

      • This occurs whenever someone presents two options as if they were the ONLY two options, and then, after eliminating ONE of them, concludes that the second option must be true.

    4. Suppressed Evidence

      • This occurs when an argument purposely leaves out or ignores relevant evidence because that evidence would cast doubt on the conclusion being offered.

  4. Fallacies of Ambiguity

    • Terms are ambiguous when it is unclear how to interpret them. This can lead us to draw erroneous conclusions from given premises.

      1. Equivocation: This occurs whenever a single term is being used in two different ways within an argument.

      2. Amphiboly: This occurs whenever an ambiguous statement, which could be interpreted in different ways, is interpreted in the WRONG way in order to support some conclusion.

  5. Fallacies of Grammatical Analogy : Mistaken inferences are drawn from the parts of something to the whole, or from a whole to its parts.

    1. Composition

    2. Division