Fallacies

Question 1

Argumentum ad baculum

Answer 1

appeal to force to either silence or threaten the opponent

Question 2

Argumentum ad hominem (direct attack)

Answer 2

character/ irrelevant personal qualities of opponent are presented as if they were evidence against their position

Question 3

Argumentum ad hominem (indirect attack)

Answer 3

position fo the opponent is not criticised, rather personal facts of opponent are used to undermine their credibility and distract from debate topic

doubt cast upon opponents motives

Question 4

Poisoning the Well

Answer 4

committing preemptive ad hominem attack based on irrelevant personal qualities before opponent has been able to make their case

stalls debate and leaves position of attacker as the apparent winner

Question 5

Tu quoque

Answer 5

attempt to counter opponents attack by retorting attack on opponent themselves, distracting audience from the original issue

Question 6

Argumentum ad misericordiam

Answer 6

appeal to emotions of pity rather than rationality to support a proposition

Question 7

Straw Man

Answer 7

oversimplifying/ pushing the opponents thesis to the extreme
“so what you’re saying is…”

Question 8

Ignoratio Elenchi

Answer 8

putting forth a proposition which might be true, but has no relation with the conclusion it is purported to support

Question 9

Argumentum ad verecundiam

Answer 9

appeal to authority for support/ dismissal of a proposition

Question 10

Plurium interrogationum

Answer 10

question is posed that implicitly assumes an affirmative/ negative answer to one or more questions on which the validity of the first question depends

Question 11

Shifting the burden of proof

Answer 11

rather than justifying ones own thesis, forcing the other person to disprove it/ justify their own instead

Question 12

Petitio principii

Answer 12

assuming as a premise of the argument its conclusion

Question 13

False analogy

Answer 13

introducing a weak analogy between A and B, to claim that since A has property P, B will also have property P

Question 14

Hasty generalization

Answer 14

supporting the truth of a proposition by means of a generalisation from few cases which are not representative/ whose representative nature has not been sufficiently argued for

Question 15

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

Answer 15

when one infers the conclusion that A must be the cause of B, exclusively from the observation that A and B are in temporal succession

Question 16

Cum hoc ergo propter hoc

Answer 16

when one infers the conclusion that A must be the cause of B, exclusively from observing that A and B exist/ vary simultaneously

Question 17

Slippery Slope

Answer 17

arguing that there exists a causal chain of events leading from even A to B; B being considered bad in some way

Question 18

Denying the antecedent

Answer 18

conditional statement (if P is the case, then Q must also be the case) establishing P as sufficient condition for Q to occur

If A, then B. Not A.
Therefore not B.

Question 19

Affirming the consequent

Answer 19

concluding that the truth of A logically implies the truth of B

If A, then B. B.
Therefore A.

Question 20

Fallacy of composition

Answer 20

deducing that since all components possess property P, the whole also possesses property P

Question 21

Fallacy of division

Answer 21

since the whole has property P, individual components must also have property P

Question 22

Ad ignorantiam

Answer 22

absence of evidence for a proposition does not constitute evidence for its contrary

Question 23

Gamblers Fallacy

Answer 23

inferring a certain outcome is more likely given a specific history of previous, statistically independent outcomes

Question 24

False dilemma

Answer 24

erroneously limits what options are available