Logical Fallacies
LOGICAL FALLACIES
2 main types: fallacies of distraction fallacies of form
Fallacies of Distraction:
Ipse dixit: “he said it himself”. Appeal to authority. – Citing a source or person because they have some aspect of authority (education, position, etc) which has no bearing on their ability to speak to the issue at hand.
Ad populum: “bandwagon” appeal to popular opinion or practice. Numbers do not make something right or wrong.
Ad baculum: “to the stick” concede or suffer – Appealing to someone’s fear or vulnerability to influence their position.
Ad hominem: “to the man” personal attack – Criticize the messenger instead of evaluating the message on its own merits. Often, ad hominem attacks occur when the attacker cannot frame a reasoned argument about the issue.
“bulverism”: refutation is unnecessary. C.S. Lewis named this fallacy. Rather than address the issue, you assign the position of the other person based upon their identity. “You think this way because you are [male, French, young etc.]
Tu quoque: “you’re just as bad”. Rather than defending your position, you point out to your opponent that they do the same thing.
Equivocation: shifting meaning – changing the meaning of the term(s) in an argument between the premises & the conclusion, thereby “validating” a different conclusion than the argument developed.
Accent: a form of equivocation. Rather than changing the meaning of a term, you change the emphasis in the argument, thereby changing the point itself.
Straw Man: misrepresentation of the opposing position, which is then refuted, and presented as if it were refutation of the accurate opposing position. Can be done by simple misrepresentation; quoting opponent out of context such that his true meaning is misrepresented; presenting someone who poorly defends a position as being representative of all those who hold that position, and claiming defeat of the position because they cannot defend it; inventing persona with position or actions that are criticized and pretending they represent the opposing group; oversimplifying the opponent’s position in order to easily defeat it.
Red herring: introduction of irrelevant topic to deflect attention from the real argument
Fallacies of Form:
Petition principii: “begging the question” – asserting / assuming the truth or validity of the thing they are trying to prove. Affirming the consequent.
False dilemma: (over-simplification) – offering an “A” or “B” only argument, when other options are possible.
Complex question: loaded question; Incorporating two different questions into one, requiring a response than condemns the argument one way or another. Ie: “Have you stopped beating your wife?” “Have you stolen any money lately?”
Non sequitur: it does not follow – the consequent offered does not logically follow the premises.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc: after this, therefore because of this ex: since the sun comes up after the rooster crows, his crowing causes it to rise.
Over-specification: making the issue unnecessarily complicated
Composition: assuming the whole is exactly equivalent to the sum of its parts. Since this element & that element are {this way} therefore the entirety is also {this way]. Ie: if sodium is poison, & chlorine is poison, then sodium chloride must be poisonous.
False analogy: using an analogy to support a position that has no relevance, influence on, or comparative value respective to the position itself. Ex. given: since crime rates are low in England where police do not carry guns, we would lower our crime rates if our policemen did not carry guns.
Argument from silence: Since we have found no evidence, therefore no event occurred OR this [event/fact] must be true because we have found no evidence to the contrary. (Ie: still looking for the evidence to support “x” but we know it is true.
Ignoratio elenchi: ignorance of the refutation – unaware that the form of argument used has been identified, labelled as fallacy.
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