Informal Fallacies Flashcards
Ad Hominem
instead of addressing someone’s argument or position, you irrelevantly attack the person or some aspect of the person who is making the argument.
Appeal to Ignorance
argue that your conclusion must be true, because there is no evidence against it.
Begging the Question
You assume without proof.
Confusion of Necessary with a Sufficient Condition
- A necessary condition is a condition that must be present for an event to occur.
- A sufficient condition is a condition or set of conditions that will produce the event.
- When you assume a necessary condition will be sufficient for the event.
Equivocation
Ex- The law imply lawgivers.
there are law in nature.
Therefore there must be a cosmic lawgiver.
False Dilemma
When you reason from an either-or position and you haven’t considered all relevant possibilities
Ex- Be my friend or be my enemy
Faulty Analogy
Assuming that two things are similar in some accepts, they then have similarity in other accepts.
Ex-Smoking cigarettes is just like ingesting arsenic both lead to death
Inconsistency
being hypocritical
Irrelevant Authority
following an idea because someone else said or did something
Is Ought
assumption is made that because things are a certain way, they should be that way
Status quo should stay the same
Ought Is
assume that the way you want things to be is the way they are
Questionable Cause
causal connection is assumed without proof.
Ex- We never had a problem with this elevator until you moved into the building.
Red Herring
irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue
Slippery Slope
one insists that it will lead to a chain reaction
Straw Person
in attempting to refute another person’s argument, you address only a weak or distorted version of it.
