Lesson 4 - Fallacies Flashcards
Two types of fallacies
Fallacies of Relevance
Fallacies of Insufficient Evidence
an argument that contains a mistake in reasoning.
Fallacy
Arguments in which the premises are logically
irrelevant to the conclusion.
Fallacies of Relevance
Arguments that though logically relevant to the conclusion, fail to provide sufficient evidence for the conclusion.
Fallacies of Insufficient Evidence
“There is nothing so stupid as an educated man, if you get him off the thing he was educated in”
Will Rogers
provides at least some reason for thinking that the second statement is true or false.
RELEVANT statement
provides at least some reason for thinking that the second statement is true.
positively relevant
provides at least some reason for thinking that the second statement is false.
negatively relevant
provides no reason for thinking that the second statement is either true or false.
logically irrelevant
FALLACIES OF RELEVANCE
Ad Hominem/Personal attack
Ad Misericordiam/Appeal to Pity
Attacking the Motive
Ad Populum/Bandwagon
Look Who’s Talking Straw Man
Begging the Question Red Herring
Scare Tactics Equivocation
Two Wrongs Make a Right
arguer rejects a person’s argument or claim
by attacking the person’s character rather than
examining the worth of the argument
Personal Attack
arguer criticizes a person’s motivation for
offering a particular argument or claim, rather than
examining the worth of the argument
Attacking the Motive
arguer rejects another person’s argument
or claim because that person is a hypocrite.
Look Who’s Talking
arguer attempts to justify a wrongful act
by claiming that some other act is just as bad or worse.
Two Wrongs Make a Right
arguer threatens harm to a reader or listener and this threat is irrelevant to the truth of the arguer’s conclusion.
Scare Tactics
arguer attempts to evoke feelings of pity or compassion, where such feelings, however understandable, are not relevant to the truth of the arguer’s
conclusion.
Appeal to Pity
arguer appeals to a person’s desire to be popular, accepted, or valued, rather than to logically relevant reasons or evidence.
Bandwagon
arguer misrepresents another person’s position to make it easier to attack.
Straw Man
arguer tries to sidetrack his audience by raising an irrelevant issue, and then claims that the original issue has been effectively settled by the irrelevant diversion.
Red Herring
arguer uses a keyword in an argument in two (or more) different senses.
Equivocation
arguer states or assumes as a premise (reason) the very thing he is seeking to probe as a conclusion.
Begging the Question
“The foolish and the dead alone
never change their opinion.”
James Russell Lowell
Arguments in which the premises, though logically relevant to the conclusion, fail to provide sufficient evidence to support the conclusion.
Fallacies of Insufficient Evidence
Fallacies of Insufficient Evidence
Ad Baculum/Appeal to Power
Ad Vericundiam/Appeal to Authority
Questionable Cause/False cause
Ad Ignorantiam/Appeal to Ignorance
Slippery Slope
False Alternatives
Weak Analogy
Loaded Question
Inconsistency
Hasty Generalizations
Composition
Division
Citing a witness or authority that is untrustworthy.
Appeal to Authority
one
appeals to force or the threat of force to bring
about the acceptance of a conclusion.
Appeal to Power
Claiming that something is true because no one has proven it false or vice versa.
Appeal to Ignorance
Posing a false either/or choice.
False Alternatives
Posing a question that contains an unfair or unwarranted presupposition.
Loaded Question
Claiming, without sufficient evidence, that one thing is the cause of something else.
False Cause
Drawing a general conclusion from a sample that is biased or too small.
Hasty Generalization
Claiming, without sufficient evidence, that a seemingly
harmless action, if taken, will lead to a disastrous outcome.
Slippery Slope
Comparing things that aren’t really comparable.
Weak Analogy
Asserting inconsistent or contradictory claims.
Inconsistency
infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole.
Composition
One reasons logically that something true of a thing must also be true to all or some of its parts.
Division
