List of fallacies
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This is a list of logical fallacies.
Contents |
[edit] Formal fallacies
Formal fallacies are arguments that are fallacious due to an error in their form or technical structure. All formal fallacies are specific types of non sequiturs.
- Appeal to probability: because something could happen, it is inevitable that it will happen. This is the premise on which Murphy's Law is based.
- Argument from fallacy: if an argument for some conclusion is fallacious, then the conclusion must necessarily be false.
- Bare assertion fallacy: premise in an argument is assumed to be true purely because it says that it is true.
- Base rate fallacy: using weak evidence to make a probability judgment without taking into account known empirical statistics about the probability.
- Conjunction fallacy: assumption that specific conditions are more probable than a single general one.
- Correlative based fallacies
- Denying the correlative: where attempts are made at introducing alternatives where there are none
- Suppressed correlative: where a correlative is redefined so that one alternative is made impossible
- Fallacy of necessity: a degree of unwarranted necessity is placed in the conclusion based on the necessity of one or more of its premises
- False dilemma (false dichotomy): where two alternative statements are held to be the only possible options, when in reality there are several
- If-by-whiskey: An answer that takes side of the questioner's suggestive question
- Ignoratio elenchi (irrelevant conclusion or irrelevant thesis)
- Homunculus fallacy: where a "middle-man" is used for explanation, this usually leads to regressive middle-man explanations without actually explaining the real nature of a function or a process
- Masked man fallacy: the substitution of identical designators in a true statement can lead to a false one
- Naturalistic fallacy: a fallacy that claims that if something is natural, then it is "good" or "right"
- Nirvana fallacy: when solutions to problems are said not to be right because they are not perfect
- Negative proof fallacy: that because a premise cannot be proven true, that premise must be false
- Package-deal fallacy: when two or more things have been linked together by tradition or culture are said to stay that way forever
[edit] Propositional fallacies
Propositional fallacies:
- Affirming a disjunct: concluded that one logical disjunction must be false because the other disjunct is true.
- Affirming the consequent: the antecedent in an indicative conditional is claimed to be true because the consequent is true. Has the form if A, then B; B, therefore A
- Denying the antecedent: the consequent in an indicative conditional is claimed to be false because the antecedent is false; if A, then B; not A, therefore not B
[edit] Quantificational fallacies
Quantificational fallacies:
- Existential fallacy: an argument has two universal premises and a particular conclusion, but the premises do not establish the truth of the conclusion
- Illicit conversion: the invalid conclusion that because a statement is true, the inverse must be as well
- Proof by example: where things are proved by giving an example
[edit] Formal syllogistic fallacies
Syllogistic fallacies are logical fallacies that occur in syllogisms.
- Affirmative conclusion from a negative premise
- Fallacy of exclusive premises: a categorical syllogism that is invalid because both of its premises are negative
- Fallacy of four terms: a categorical syllogism has four terms
- Illicit major: a categorical syllogism that is invalid because its major term is undistributed in the major premise but distributed in the conclusion
- Illicit minor: a categorical syllogism that is invalid because its minor term is undistributed in the minor premise but distributed in the conclusion.
- Fallacy of the undistributed middle: the middle term in a categorical syllogism is not distributed
- Categorical syllogism: an argument with a positive conclusion, but one or two negative premises
[edit] Informal fallacies
Informal fallacies are arguments that are fallacious for reasons other than structural ("formal") flaws.
- Argument from repetition (argumentum ad nauseam)
- Appeal to ridicule: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made by presenting the opponent's argument in a way that makes it appear ridiculous
- Argument from ignorance ("appeal to ignorance"): The fallacy of assuming that something is true/false because it has not been proven false/true. For example: "The student has failed to prove that he didn't cheat on the test, therefore he must have cheated on the test."
- Begging the question ("petitio principii"): where the conclusion of an argument is implicitly or explicitly assumed in one of the premises
- Burden of proof
- Circular cause and consequence
- Continuum fallacy (fallacy of the beard)
- Correlation does not imply causation (cum hoc ergo propter hoc)
- Equivocation
- Fallacies of distribution
- Division: where one reasons logically that something true of a thing must also be true of all or some of its parts
- Ecological fallacy
- Fallacy of many questions (complex question, fallacy of presupposition, loaded question, plurium interrogationum)
- Fallacy of the single cause
- Historian's fallacy
- False attribution
- False compromise/middle ground
- Gambler's fallacy: the incorrect belief that the likelihood of a random event can be affected by or predicted from other, independent events
- Incomplete comparison
- Inconsistent comparison
- Intentional fallacy
- Loki's Wager
- Lump of labour fallacy (fallacy of labour scarcity, zero-sum fallacy)
- Moving the goalpost
- No true Scotsman
- Perfect solution fallacy: where an argument assumes that a perfect solution exists and/or that a solution should be rejected because some part of the problem would still exist after it was implemented
- Post hoc ergo propter hoc: also known as false cause, coincidental correlation or correlation not causation.
- Proof by verbosity (argumentum verbosium)
- Psychologist's fallacy
- Regression fallacy
- Reification (hypostatization)
- Retrospective determinism (it happened so it was bound to)
- Special pleading: where a proponent of a position attempts to cite something as an exemption to a generally accepted rule or principle without justifying the exemption
- Suppressed correlative: an argument which tries to redefine a correlative (two mutually exclusive options) so that one alternative encompasses the other, thus making one alternative impossible
- Sunk cost fallacy
- Wrong direction
[edit] Faulty generalizations
- Accident (fallacy): when an exception to the generalization is ignored
- Cherry picking
- Composition: where one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some (or even every) part of the whole
- Dicto simpliciter
- Converse accident (a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter): when an exception to a generalization is wrongly called for
- False analogy
- Hasty generalization (fallacy of insufficient statistics, fallacy of insufficient sample, fallacy of the lonely fact, leaping to a conclusion, hasty induction, secundum quid)
- Loki's Wager: insistence that because a concept cannot be clearly defined, it cannot be discussed
- Misleading vividness
- Overwhelming exception
- Spotlight fallacy
- Thought-terminating cliché: a commonly used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to quell cognitive dissonance.
[edit] Red herring fallacies
A red herring is an argument, given in response to another argument, which does not address the original issue. See also irrelevant conclusion
- Ad hominem: attacking the personal instead of the argument. A form of this is reductio ad Hitlerum.
- Argumentum ad baculum ("appeal to force", "appeal to the stick"): where an argument is made through coercion or threats of force towards an opposing party
- Argumentum ad populum ("appeal to belief", "appeal to the majority", "appeal to the people"): where a proposition is claimed to be true solely because many people believe it to be true
- Association fallacy & Guilt by association
- Appeal to authority: where an assertion is deemed true because of the position or authority of the person asserting it
- Appeal to consequences: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument concludes a premise is either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences for a particular party
- Appeal to emotion: where an argument is made due to the manipulation of emotions, rather than the use of valid reasoning
- Appeal to fear: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made by increasing fear and prejudice towards the opposing side
- Wishful thinking: a specific type of appeal to emotion where a decision is made according to what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than according to evidence or reason
- Appeal to spite: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made through exploiting people's bitterness or spite towards an opposing party
- Appeal to flattery: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made due to the use of flattery to gather support
- Appeal to motive: where a premise is dismissed, by calling into question the motives of its proposer
- Appeal to novelty: where a proposal is claimed to be superior or better solely because it is new or modern
- Appeal to poverty (argumentum ad lazarum)
- Appeal to wealth (argumentum ad crumenam)
- Argument from silence (argumentum ex silentio)
- Appeal to tradition: where a thesis is deemed correct on the basis that it has a long standing tradition behind it
- Chronological snobbery: where a thesis is deemed incorrect because it was commonly held when something else, clearly false, was also commonly held
- Genetic fallacy
- Judgmental language
- Poisoning the well
- Sentimental fallacy: it would be more pleasant if; therefore it ought to be; therefore it is
- Straw man argument
- Style over substance fallacy
- Texas sharpshooter fallacy
- Two wrongs make a right
- Tu quoque
[edit] Conditional or questionable fallacies
[edit] See also
- List of common misconceptions
- List of cognitive biases
- List of memory biases
- List of misquotations
- List of topics related to public relations and propaganda
- Straight and Crooked Thinking (book)
[edit] External links
- LogicalFallacies.info
- Logical Fallacies, Literacy Education Online
- The Taxonomy of Logical Fallacies, FallacyFiles.org
