Fallacies Flashcards
- “Treats failure to prove a claim as constituting denial of that claim”
- “Taking a lack of evidence for a claim as evidence undermining that claim”
Lack of evidence for a position is taken to prove that position is false
- “Fails to exclude an alternative explanation for the observed effect”
- “Overlooks the possibility that the same thing may causally contribute both to education and to good health”
Failure to consider an alternate cause for the effect, or an alternate cause for both the cause and the effect
-“Treating the failure to establish that a certain claim is false as equivalent to a demonstration that the claim is true”
Lack of evidence against a position is taken to prove that position is true
- “Mistakes the observation that one thing happens after another for proof that the second thing is the result of the first”
- “Mistakes a temporal relationship for a causal relationship”
Assuming a causal relationship on the basis of the sequence of events
-“Confuses a sufficient condition with a required condition”
Confuses a sufficient condition for a necessary condition
- “It treats something that is necessary for bringing out a state of affairs as something that is sufficient to bring about a state of affairs”
- “From the assertion that something is necessary to a moral order, the argument concludes that that thing is sufficient for an element of the moral order to be realized”
Confuses a necessary condition for a sufficient condition
- “Confusing the coincidence of two events with a causal relation between the two”
- “Assumes a causal relationship where only a correlation has been indicated”
Assuming a causal relationship when only a correlation exists
- “The author cites irrelevant data”
- “draws a conclusion that is broader in scope than is warranted by the evidence advanced”
- “It uses irrelevant facts to justify a claim about the quality of the disputer product”
- “It fails to give any reason for the judgment it reaches”
- “It introduces information unrelated to its conclusion as evidence in support of that conclusion”
General lack of relevant evidence for the conclusion
-“Taking the nonexistence of something as evidence that a necessary precondition for that thing also did not exist”
Mistaken negation
- “it assumes what it seeks to establish”
- “argues circularly by assuming the conclusion is true in stating the premises”
- “presupposes the truth of what it sets out to prove”
- “the argument assumes what it is attempting to demonstrate”
- “it takes for granted the very claim that it sets out to establish”
- “it offers, in place of support for its conclusion, a mere restatement of that conclusion”
Circular reasoning
-“the argument confuses the percentage of the budget spent on a program with the overall amount spent on that program”
Numbers and percentage errors
-“mistakes being sufficient to justify punishment for being required to justify it”
Mistaken reversal
- “treats a claim about what is currently the case as if it were a claim about what has been the case for an extended period”
- “uncritically draws an inference from what has been true in the past to what will be true in the future”
Time shift errors
- “assuming that because something is true of each of the parts of a whole it is true of the whole itself”
- “improperly infers that each and every scientist has a certain characteristic from the premise that most scientists have that characteristic”
- “takes the view of one lawyer to represent the views of all lawyers”
Errors of composition
-“presumes, without providing justification, that what is true of a whole must also be true of its constituent parts”
Errors of division
- “refutes a distorted version of an opposing position”
- “misdescribing the student representatives position, thereby making it easier to challenge”
- “portrays opponents’ views as more extreme than they really are”
- “distorts the proposal advocated by opponents”
Straw man
-“it confuses undermining an argument in support of a given conclusion with showing that the conclusion itself is false”
Some evidence against a position is taken to prove that position is false
-“the author mistakes an effect for a cause”
Failure to consider that the events may be reversed
- “the judgment of experts is applied to a matter in which their expertise is irrelevant”
- “the argument appropriately appeals to the authority of the mayor”
- “it relies on the judgment of experts in a matter to which their expertise is irrelevant”
- “accepts a claim on mere authority, without requiring sufficient justification”
Appeal to authority
-“fails to consider that some students may be neither fascinated by nor completely indifferent to the subject being taught”
False dilemma
- “it treats popular opinion as if it constituted conclusive evidence for a claim”
- “attempts to discredit legislation by appealing to public sentiment”
- “a claim is inferred to the false merely because a majority of people believe it to be false”
- “the argument instead of providing adequate reasons in support of its conclusion, makes an appeal to popular opinion”
Appeal to popular opinion/ appeal to numbers
- “makes an attack on the character of opponents”
- “it is directed against the proponent of a claim rather than against the claim itself”
- “he directs his criticism against the person making the argument rather than directing it against the argument itself”
- “it draws conclusions about the merit of a position and about the content of that position from evidence about the position’s source”
- “assuming that a claim is false on the grounds that the person defending it is of questionable character”
Source argument
- “depending on the ambiguous use of a key term”
- “it confuses two different meanings of the word ‘solve’”
- “relies on interpreting a key term in two different ways”
- “equivocates with respect to a central concept”
- “allows a key term to shift in meaning from one use to the next”
- “fails to define the term”
Uncertain use of a term or concept
- “attempt to persuade by making an emotional appeal”
- “uses emotive language in labeling the proposals”
- “the argument appeals to emotion rather than reason”
Appeal to emotion
- “uses evidence drawn from a small sample that may well be unrepresentative”
- “generalizes from an unrepresentative sample”
- “states a generalization based on a selection that is not representative of the group about which the generalization is supposed to hold true”
Survey errors
- “bases a conclusion on claims that are inconsistent with each other”
- “the author makes incompatible assumptions”
- “introduce information that actually contradicts the conclusion”
- “offers in support of its conclusion pieces of evidence that are mutually contradicting”
- “some of the evidence presented in support of the conclusion is inconsistent with other evidence provided”
- “assumes something that it later denies, resulting in a contradiction”
Internal contradiction
- “treats as similar two cases that are different in a critical respect”
- “treats two kinds of things that differ in important respects as if they do not differ”
False analogy
- “supports a universal claim on the basis of a single example”
- “The argument generalizes from too small a sample of cases”
- “Too general a conclusion is made about investigating on the basis of a single experiment”
- “bases a general claim on a few exceptional instances”
Exceptional case/ overgeneralization
