Beliefs & fallacies
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- Appeals to Motives in Place of Support: (page 4)
- Appeal to Force: persuaded to agree by force.
- Appeal to Pity: persuaded to agree by sympathy.
- Consequences: belief must be false because of unacceptable consequences.
- Prejudicial Language: value or moral goodness is attached to believing the author.
- Popularity: a proposition is argued to be true because it is widely held to be true.
- Category Errors: (page 8)
- Composition: because parts of the whole have a certain property, it is argued that the whole has that property.
- Division: because the whole has a certain property, it is argued that the parts have that property.
- Causal Fallacies: (page 7)
- Post Hoc: because one thing follows another, it is held to cause the other.
- Joint effect: one thing is held to cause another when in fact they are both the joint effects of an underlying cause.
- Insignificant: one thing is held to cause another, and it does, but it is insignificant compared to other causes of the effect.
- Wrong Direction: the direction between cause and effect is reversed.
- Complex Cause: the cause identified is only a part of the entire cause of the effect.
- Changing the Subject: (page 5)
- Attacking the Person:
- the person's character is attacked
- the person's circumstances are noted
- the person does not practice what is preached
- Appeal to Authority:
- the authority is not an expert in the field
- experts in the field disagree
- the authority was joking, drunk or somehow not being serious
- Anonymous Authority: the authority in question is not named.
- Style Over Substance: the argument's (or arguer's) manner of presentation is felt to affect the truth of the conclusion.
- Fallacies of Ambiguity: (page 9)
- Equivocation: the same term is used with two different meanings.
- Amphiboly: the structure of a sentence allows two different interpretations.
- Accent: the emphasis on a word or phrase suggests a meaning contrary to what the sentence actually says.
- Fallacies of Definition: (page 10)
- Too Broad: the definition includes items which should not be included.
- Too Narrow: the definition does not include all the items which should be included.
- Failure to Elucidate: the definition is more difficult to understand than the word or concept being defined.
- Circular Definition: the definition includes the term being defined as a part of the definition.
- Conflicting Conditions: the definition is self-contradictory.
- Fallacies of Distraction: (page 3)
- False Dilemma: only two choices are given when in fact there are other options.
- From Ignorance: assuming something is false when it's truth is not known.
- Slippery Slope: a series of increasingly unacceptable consequences is drawn.
- Complex Question: two unrelated points are conjoined as a single proposition.
- Fallacies of Explanation: (page 11)
- Subverted Support: the phenomenon being explained doesn't exist.
- Non-support: evidence for the phenomenon being explained is biased.
- Untestability: the theory which explains cannot be tested.
- Limited Scope: the theory which explains can only explain one thing.
- Limited Depth: the theory which explains does not appeal to underlying causes.
- Fallacies involving Statistical Syllogisms: (page 8)
- Accident: a generalization is applied when circumstances suggest that there should be an exception.
- Converse Accident: an exception is applied in circumstances where a generalization should apply.
- Inductive Fallacies: (page 6)
- Hasty Generalization: drawing inferences on a population from too small a sample.
- Unrepresentative Sample: drawing inferences from an unrepresentative sample.
- False Analogy: comparing two objects or events that are relevantly dissimilar.
- Slothful Induction: denying the conclusion to a strong inductive argument despite evidence to the contrary.
- Fallacy of Exclusion: denying the logical conclusion to an inductive argument by excluding evidence from consideration.
- Missing the Point: (page 8)
- Begging the Question: the truth of the conclusion is assumed by the premises.
- Irrelevant Conclusion: an argument in defense of one conclusion instead proves a different conclusion.
- Straw Man: the author attacks an argument different from (and weaker than) the opposition's best argument.
- Non Sequitur: (page 9)
- Affirming the Consequent: If A then B. B ... therefore A.
- Denying the Antecedent: If A then B. Not A ... therefore not B.
- Inconsistency: asserting that contrary or contradictory statements are both true.
- Syllogistic Errors: (page 12)
- Fallacy of Four Terms: mimicking syllogistic logic, but with more than the standard three terms (premises and conclusion may still be true despite the logical error).
- Undistributed Middle: relating two separate ideas just because they share some common property.
- Illicit Major: when the predicate of the conclusion talks about all of something, but the premises refer to only particular cases of that term.
- Illicit Minor: when the subject of the conclusion talks about all of something, but the premises refer to only particular cases of that term.
- Fallacy of Exclusive Premises: when both the major and minor premises are exclusive (negative statements).
- Fallacy of Drawing an Affirmative Conclusion From a Negative Premise: as the name implies.
- Existential Fallacy: a particular conclusion is drawn from universal premises.
Reprinted with permission from Professor Stephen Downes.
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