, a fallacy is usually an improper argumentation in reasoning often resulting in a misconception or presumption. Literally, a fallacy is an error in reasoning that renders an argument logically invalid . ref http www.thefreedictionary.com fallacy TheFreeDictionary.com Fallacy 4 ref By accident ... bandwagoning everyone says so , the false dilemma or False dilemma either or fallacy in which the situation ... 2nd ref Fallacies can generally be classified as Informal fallacy informal premises fail to support the proposed conclusion, but the argument is structured properly or Formal fallacy formal logical ... Accident fallacyFallacy of accident or sweeping generalization Accident fallacyFallacy of accident ... an accountable exception is ignored . clarify date July 2011 Converse accident Converse fallacy of accident or hasty generalization Converse accident Converse fallacy of accident or hasty generalization ... discredits the claim itself genetic fallacy Also called Ignoratio Elenchi , a red herring Affirming .... A related fallacy is Circulus in Probando , arguing in a circle, or circular reasoning. This is when ... of them as true at the outset, there is no reason to accept the conclusions. Non sequitur logic Fallacy of false cause Non sequitur logic Fallacy of false cause or Non sequitur logic non sequitur incorrectly ... be causing both, such as summer heat. Also called Causality causation versus correlation . Fallacy of many questions Fallacy of many questions or loaded question groups more than one question in the form ... man Straw man A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresenting an opponent s position ... or ambiguous use of words. They are generally classified as follows. Magisterial fallacy Engineer s Resolve ... s actual quote and used to discredit the argument. It is a form of False attribution attribution fallacy ... to Fallacy free Arguments publisher Cengage Learning year 2008 edition 6 pages 130 isbn 978 0 495 09506 .... Fallacy of composition Fallacy of composition From each to all . Arguing from some property of constituent ... more details
Syllogistic fallacies are logical fallacy logical fallacies that occur in syllogism s. They include Any syllogism type other than polysyllogism and disjunctive fallacy of four terms Occurring in categorical syllogism s related to affirmative or negative premises affirmative conclusion from a negative premise fallacy of exclusive premises negative conclusion from affirmative premises existential fallacyfallacy of the undistributed middle illicit major illicit minor fallacy of necessity Occurring in disjunctive syllogism s affirming a disjunct Occurring in statistical syllogism s dicto simpliciter fallacies accident fallacy accident converse accident External links http www.fallacyfiles.org syllfall.html Fallacy files Syllogistic fallacy Formal Fallacy logic stub Category Formal fallacies Category Syllogistic fallacies fa he ... more details
Unreferenced stub auto yes date December 2009 A fallacy of distribution is a logical fallacy occurring when an argument assumes there is no difference between a term in the distributive referring to every member of a class and collective referring to the class itself as a whole sense. There are two variations of this fallacyFallacy of composition assumes what is true of the parts is true of the whole. This fallacy is also known as arguing from the specific to the general Since Judy is so diligent in the workplace, this entire company must have an amazing work ethic. Fallacy of division assumes what is true of the whole is true of its parts or some subset of parts . Because this company is so corrupt, so must every employee within it be corrupt. While fallacious, arguments that make these assumptions may be persuasive because of the representativeness heuristic . See also Existential fallacy Ecological fallacyFallacy of the undistributed middle Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny Informal Fallacy DEFAULTSORT Fallacy Of Distribution Category Logical fallacies Logic stub he ... more details
Unreferenced date December 2009 The relativist fallacy , also known as the subjectivist fallacy , is claiming that something is true for one person but not true for someone else. The fallacy is supposed to rest on the law of non contradiction . The fallacy applies only to objective facts, or what are alleged ... relativist fallacy Begging the question begs the question against anyone who earnestly however mistakenly ... question begging way, to make it clear wherein, exactly, the fallacy lies. There are at least two ways to interpret the relativist fallacy either as identical to relativism generally , or as the ad hoc ... discussions of the relativist fallacy which make the fallacy out to be identical to relativism e.g. ... identified fallacy of informal logic, namely, Logical fallacy Begging the question begging the question against an earnest, intelligent, logically competent relativist. It is itself a fallacy to describe a controversial view as a fallacy not, at least, without arguing that it is a fallacy. In any ..., is to commit the relativist fallacy. If one commits a fallacy, one says something false or not worth ... . The second step includes an argument from fallacy . On the other hand, if someone adopts a simple ... having to mount any further defense of the position one might be said to have committed a fallacy. The accusation of having committed a fallacy might rest on either of two grounds 1 the relativism ... the Law of Non Contradiction or 2 the defense and thus the fallacy itself is an example of ad hoc reasoning ... is correct despite its failure to stand up to logic. On any interpretation of the fallacy, in determining whether the relativist fallacy has been committed, one should distinguish between things ... the fallacy. References Law, Stephen 2005 Thinking Tools The Relativist Fallacy, Think Philosophy for everyone A journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy 3 57 58 y See also Formal fallacy Informal fallacy Informal fallacy DEFAULTSORT Relativist Fallacy Category Logical fallacies fi Itseen yleist minen ... more details
Refimprove date May 2010 Wiktionary fallacy A deductive fallacy is defined as a deductive argument that is invalid. The argument itself could have true premise s, but still have a false logical consequence conclusion . ref cite web url http www.nizkor.org features fallacies title Description of Fallacies last Labossiere first Michael year 1995 publisher The Nizkor Project accessdate 2008 09 09 ref Thus, a deductive fallacy is a fallacy where deduction goes wrong, and is no longer a logical process. Logical fallacy The standard Aristotelian logical fallacies are Fallacy of four terms Quaternio terminorum Fallacy of the undistributed middle Fallacy of illicit process of the illicit major major or the illicit minor minor term and Affirmative conclusion from a negative premise . Other logical fallacies include The begging the question self reliant fallacy In philosophy , the term logical fallacy properly refers to a formal fallacy a flaw in the structure of a deductive reasoning deductive logical ... encompasses informal fallacy informal fallacies as well as formal fallacies valid but soundness unsound claims or poor non deductive argumentation. The presence of a formal fallacy in a deductive argument does not imply anything about the argument s premises or its conclusion see fallacyfallacy . Both ... in the manner described. By extension, an argument can contain a formal fallacy even if the argument ... of probability or causality can be said to commit a formal fallacy. Example File Logical fallacy.svg thumb 250px A Venn diagram illustrating a fallacy br Statement 1 Most of the green is touching the red. br Statement 2 Most of the red is touching the blue. br Logical fallacy Since most of the green ..., is a false statement. In the strictest sense, a logical fallacy is the incorrect application ..., the deductive fallacy is formed by points that may individually appear logical, but when placed ... 2 relevance fallacies formal fallacy informal fallacy DEFAULTSORT Deductive Fallacy Category Deduction ... more details
The psychologist s fallacy is a fallacy that occurs when an observer presupposes the universality of his her own perspective when analyzing a behavioral event. The fallacy was named by William James in the 19th century. It is a specific form of the similar to me stereotype what is unknown about another person is assumed, for simplicity, using things the observer knows about himself or herself. Such a bias leads the observer to presuppose knowledge or skills, or lack of such, possessed by another person. For example, I or everyone I know or most people I know don t know very much about chemistry. Therefore I can assume that this other person knows very little about chemistry. This assumption may be true in any number of specific cases, making inductive reasoning based on this assumption cogent , but is not applicable in the general case there are many people who are very knowledgeable in the field of chemistry , and therefore deductive reasoning based on this assumption may be invalid. The great snare of the psychologist is the confusion of his own standpoint with that of the mental fact about which he is making his report. I shall hereafter call this the psychologist s fallacy par excellence. William James, Principles of Psychology volume I. chapter vii. p. 196, 1890 Psychologist s fallacy, the fallacy, to which the psychologist is peculiarly liable, of reading into the mind he is examining what is true of his own especially of reading into lower minds what is true of higher. James Mark Baldwin , Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology volume II. p. 382 2, 1902 A danger to be avoided known as the psychologist s fallacy . This arises from the fact that the experimenter is apt to suppose that the subject will respond to a stimulus or an order in the same way as he himself ... s fallacy is considered analogous to David Hackett Fischer s historian s fallacy . DEFAULTSORT Psychologist s Fallacy Category Logical fallacies ... more details
A fallacy of division occurs when one reasons logic ally that something true of a thing must also be true of all or some of its parts. An example A Boeing 747 can fly unaided across the ocean. A Boeing 747 has jet engines. Therefore, one of its jet engines can fly unaided across the ocean. The converse of this fallacy is called fallacy of composition , which arises when one fallaciously attributes a property of some part of a thing to the thing as a whole. Both fallacies were addressed by Aristotle in Sophistical Refutations . Another example Functioning brains think. Functioning brains are nothing but the neurons that they are composed of. If functioning brains think, then the individual neurons in them think. Individual neurons do not think. Functioning brains do not think. From 3 & 4 Functioning brains think and functioning brains do not think. From 1 & 5 Since the premises Entailment entail a contradiction 6 , at least one of the premises must be false. We may diagnose the problem as located in premise 3, which quite plausibly commits the fallacy of division. An application Famously and controversially, in the philosophy of the Greek Anaxagoras at least as it is discussed by the Roman Atomist Lucretius , it was assumed that the atoms constituting a substance must themselves have the salient observed properties of that substance so atoms of water would be wet, atoms of iron would be hard, atoms of wool would be soft, etc. This doctrine is called homeomeria , and it plainly depends on the fallacy of division. If a system as a whole has some property that none of its constituents has or perhaps, it has it but not as a result of some constituent having that property , this is sometimes called an Emergence emergent property of the system. See also Ecological fallacy External links http www.fallacyfiles.org division.html Logical Fallacy Division The Fallacy Files Informal Fallacy Category Verbal fallacies Division Category Relevance fallacies philo stub de Trugschluss ... more details
One source date September 2010 The animistic fallacy is the logical fallacy of arguing that an event or situation necessarily arose because someone intentionally acted to cause it. ref name Sowell cite book title Knowledge and decisions authorlink Thomas Sowell last Sowell first Thomas edition 3rd publisher Basic Books year 1996 isbn 9780465037384 pages 97 100 url http books.google.com books?id 4kqTMrEKWXoC&pg PA97 ref While it could be that someone set out to effect a specific goal, the fallacy appears in an argument that states this must be the case. ref name Sowell The name of the fallacy comes from the animism animistic belief that changes in the physical world are the work of conscious spirits. Citation needed date September 2010 Examples Thomas Sowell in his book Knowledge and Decisions presents several arguments as examples of the animistic fallacy ref name Sowell that people earn wealth always because of superior choices that central planning is necessary to prevent chaos in society Sowell repeatedly dismisses the necessity that order comes from design, and notes that fallacious animistic arguments tend to provide explanations that require comparatively little time to implement. In this light he contrasts the Genesis creation narrative six day creation of the world described in the Bible to the development of life over billions of years described by evolution . See also Argument from ignorance Pathetic fallacy Reification fallacy References Reflist Informal fallacy DEFAULTSORT Animistic Fallacy Category Causal fallacies philosophy stub he ... more details
distinguish Historian s fallacy The Historical fallacy , also called the psychological fallacy , is a logical fallacy originally described by philosopher John Dewey in 1896. The historical fallacy occurs when a set of considerations which hold good only because a completed process is read into the content of the process which conditions this completed result. ref The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology , John Dewey, 1896 ref More simply stated, one commits the historical fallacy when one reads into a process the results that occur because of that process. Example A person coming across a loaf of bread without knowing the process by which bread is made, might begin to try to understand how to make bread by analyzing only its ingredients. Finding that bread contains a large amount of gas, one might conclude that gas is an ingredient used in making bread. However, a baker does not add gas into bread. Rather yeast creates a chemical process that causes the bread to rise with bubbles of carbon dioxide gas. The fallacy is in not recognizing that the gas is a result of the process of making bread and not a preexisting ingredient used to make it. Completed results supervene upon processes that are not necessarily reducible to the parts of that process. Applications The historical fallacy has implication in analytic philosophy and metalogic . For instance many analytic philosophers apply logic to metaphysics metaphysical questions without inquiring into the metaphysical processes underlying logic. Thus many Process theory process theorists might contend that much of analytic philosophy is undermined by the historical fallacy. See also Process theory References references External links http psychclassics.yorku.ca Dewey reflex.htm The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology 1896 Category Logical fallacies ... more details
Expert subject Philosophy Logic date September 2009 No footnotes date November 2010 The existential fallacy , or existential instantiation , is a logical fallacy in Boolean logic while it is not in Aristotelian logic . In an existential fallacy, we presuppose that a class has members even when we are not explicitly told so that is, we assume that the class has existential import . An existential fallacy committed in a categorical syllogism is validity invalid because it has two universal premises and a particular conclusion. In other words, for the conclusion to be true, at least one member of the class must exist, but the premises do not establish this. Boolean logic In modern times, presupposition that a class has members is seen as unacceptable. In 1905, Bertrand Russell wrote an essay entitled The Existential Import of Proposition , in which he called this Boolean approach Guiseppe Peano Peano s interpretation . The fallacy does not occur in enthymeme s, where hidden premises required to make the syllogism valid assume the existence of at least one member of the class. Examples First example Let S subject and P predicate. Consider the following two propositions A proposition says, All S is P. I proposition says, Some S is P. This is an existential fallacy of subalternation . However, in Aristotelian logic, this mode of reasoning is perfectly permissible. Let S soldiers and P heroes. We then have All S soldiers are P heroes . Some S is P. That is, if all soldiers are heroes ... Martian. This conclusion is an existential fallacy. The absurdity of the result becomes especially ... 2 to its subaltern 3 . The existential fallacy is a syllogistic fallacy . Modern logical ... References reflist External links http www.fallacyfiles.org existent.html Fallacy files existential fallacy http www.swif.uniba.it lei foldop foldoc.cgi?existential fallacy FOLDOC existential fallacy Formal Fallacy FOLDOC logic stub Category Syllogistic fallacies Category Quantificational fallacies ... more details
Refimprove date April 2009 Original research article date August 2009 The continuum fallacy also called the fallacy of the beard ref David Roberts http writing2.richmond.edu WRITING wweb reason2d.html Reasoning Other Fallacies ref , line drawing fallacy , bald man fallacy , fallacy of the heap , the fallacy of grey , the sorites fallacy is an informal logical fallacy closely related to the sorites paradox , or paradox of the heap. The fallacy causes one to erroneously reject a vagueness vague proposition claim simply because it is not as precise as one would like it to be. Vagueness alone does not necessarily imply invalidity. The fallacy appears to demonstrate that two states or conditions cannot be considered difference distinct or do not exist at all because between them there exists a continuum theory continuum of states. According to the fallacy, differences in Quality philosophy quality cannot result from differences in quantity . There are clearly reasonable and clearly unreasonable cases in which objects either belong or do not belong to a particular group of objects based on their properties. We are able to take them case by case and designate them as such even in the case of properties which may be vaguely defined. The existence of hard or controversial cases does not preclude ... fallacy refers to situations where there is or appears to be a continuum of states, such as temperature ... may, at base, simply be very many discrete states. For the purpose of the continuum fallacy, one ..., any argument against the sorites paradox can also be used against the continuum fallacy. One argument against the fallacy is based on the simple counterexample there do exist bald people and people who ... how much hair he loses, he can never be called bald. The heap The fallacy can be described in the form ... of wheat we add, we will never have a heap. Therefore, heaps don t exist Others Other uses of this fallacy ... Portal Thinking Imprecise language Fuzzy logic Closed concept Informal Fallacy Category Informal ... more details
The furtive fallacy is an informal fallacy of emphasis. Historian David Hackett Fischer identified it as the belief that significant facts of history are necessarily sinister, and that history itself is a story of causes mostly insidious and results mostly invidious. It is more than a conspiracy theory in that it does not merely consider the possibility of hidden motives and deeds, but insists on them. In its extreme form, the fallacy represents general paranoia . ref name fischer cite book first David Hackett last Fischer authorlink David Hackett Fischer year 1970 title Historians Fallacies ref Fischer identifies several examples of the fallacy, particularly the works of Charles A. Beard . In each case, Fischer shows that historians provided detailed portrayals of historical figures involved in off record meetings and exhibiting low morals, based on little or no evidence. He notes that the furtive fallacy does not necessarily imply deliberate falsification of history it can follow from a sincere but misguided belief that nothing happens by accident or mistake. ref name fischer Richard Hofstadter discussed the fallacy before Fischer, although not by name. In reviewing histories from the Progressive Era , Hofstadter noted that the progressive historians tended to assume that reality was always hidden and ignored, being determined by bribes, rebates, and secret business deals. ref name fischer ref name hofstadter cite book first Richard last Hofstadter authorlink Richard Hofstadter year 1955 title The Age of Reform ref A modification of the furtive fallacy holds that when the historical record provides no evidence explaining a particular set of events, this is itself evidence of a furtive cause. ref name davidson cite book first Ronald M. last Davidson year 2002 title Indian Esoteric Buddhism ref See also Conspiracy theory Notes Reflist Further reading cite book first Joseph last Roisman year 2003 title Brill s Companion to Alexander the Great Informal fallacy Category ... more details
For other uses of prescience, see precognition . The fallacy of prescience is a term used by Smith, DeShaye and Stoicheff ref http llc.oxfordjournals.org content 21 2 199.abstract ref to describe an erroneous exploratory research technique in which the experimental scaffolding embeds assumptions about what will be discovered. The example cited describes a common practice in Humanities Computing in which an XML database and schema are designed at the outset of a research project to annotate a document as a means of discovering the structural relationships within the subject text. The fallacy, they say, arises from the fact that some inferences must be made about the structures that will be discovered in order to construct the schema that will describe them. The fallacy of prescience can be viewed as a procedural manifestation of the informal fallacy of begging the question . External links Reflist http llc.oxfordjournals.org cgi content full 21 2 199 Callimachus Avoiding the Pitfalls of XML for Collaborative Text Analysis Category Causal fallacies Category Pseudoscience ... more details
The descriptive fallacy refers to reasoning which treats a speech act as a logical proposition , which would be mistaken when the meaning of the statement is not based on its truth condition . ref cite encyclopedia url http www.blackwellreference.com public tocnode?id g9781405106795 chunk g97814051067955 ss1 69 encyclopedia The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy title Descriptive fallacy editor first Nicholas editor last Bunnin editor2 first Jiyuan editor2 last Yu year 2004 isbn 9781405106795 ref It was suggested by the British philosopher of language J. L. Austin in 1955 in the lectures now known as How to Do Things With Words . Austin argued that performative utterance s are not meaningfully evaluated as true or false but rather by other measures, which would hold that a statement such as thank you is not meant to describe a fact and to interpret it as such would be to commit the descriptive fallacy. References Reflist logic stub Category Logical fallacies ... more details
The definist fallacy can refer to three logical fallacy logical fallacies related to how terms are defined in an argument. The first, coined by William Frankena in 1939, involves the definition of one property in terms of another. The second fallacy refers to the insisted use of a persuasive definition ref name IEP Fallacies cite encyclopedia title Fallacies encyclopedia Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy accessdate March 31, 2011 last Dowden first Bradley date December 31, 2010 url http www.iep.utm.edu fallacy Persuasive 20Definition ref in an argument. Finally, it can also refer to the Socratic fallacy in which terms are required to be defined before use. ref name Blackwell cite encyclopedia last Bunnin first Nicholas coauthors Jiyuan Yu encyclopedia The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy title Definist fallacy url year 2004 publisher Wiley Blackwell isbn 9781405106795 page 165 url http books.google.com books?id OskKWI1YA7AC&pg PA165 ref This article focuses on the first of these fallacies. The philosopher William Frankena first used the term definist fallacy in a paper published in the British analytic philosophy journal Mind journal Mind in 1939. ref name Frankena 1939 cite journal title The Naturalistic Fallacy first W. K. last Frankena work Mind volume 48 number 192 ... he generalized and critiqued G. E. Moore s naturalistic fallacy , which argued that good cannot be defined ... Preston first Aaron date December 30, 2005 ref Frankena argued that the naturalistic fallacy is a complete misnomer because it is neither limited to naturalistic properties nor necessarily a fallacy. On the first ...?id lxnsElfqa70C&pg PA94 year 1989 ref On the second word fallacy , Frankena rejected the idea that it represented an error in reasoning &ndash a fallacy as it is usually recognized &ndash rather than ... two things that may be identical in fact are. ref name Flew cite encyclopedia title Definist fallacy ... the fallacy of begging the question . ref name Ridge References Reflist Category Logical fallacies ... more details
TOC right Reification also known as concretism , or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness is a fallacy ... in logical arguments is usually regarded as a fallacy. In rhetoric , it may be sometimes difficult ... as pathetic fallacy or anthropomorphic fallacy . Nature provides empathy that we may have insight ... or ideological, such as existence, good, and justice. ref name auto Fallacy of misplaced concreteness In the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead , one commits the fallacy of misplaced concreteness ... for the concrete. It is an example of what I will call the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness ... 684 83639 4 ref blockquote Whitehead proposed the fallacy in a discussion of the relation of spatial ... is an example of what I have termed The Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness. ref cite book last Whitehead ... corroborated, the reification fallacy applied to scientific constructs is not a fallacy at all it is one part of theory creation and evaluation in normal science. Similar fallacies Pathetic fallacy also known as anthropomorphic fallacy or anthropomorphization is a specific type of reification ... fallacy is when those characteristics are specifically human characteristics, thoughts, and feelings ... fallacy as used in agnosticism and atheism discussions ref Pathetic fallacy is also related to personification ... in question, whereas the pathetic fallacy is much broader and more allusive. The animistic fallacy ... fallacy , compared to The train was impatient. reification . Reification fallacy should not be confused with other fallacies of ambiguity accentus fallacy Accentus , where the ambiguity arises from the emphasis accent placed on a word or phrase Amphiboly , a verbal fallacy arising from ambiguity in the grammatical structure of a sentence fallacy of composition Composition , when one assumes that a whole has a property solely because its various parts have that property fallacy of division Division ... cases we are usually not dealing with a fallacy but with rhetorical applications of language. The distinction ... more details
unreferenced date December 2008 A fallacy of necessity fellacia necessitas is a logical fallacyfallacy in the logic of a syllogism whereby a degree of unwarranted necessity is placed in the conclusion. Example a Bachelors are necessarily unmarried. b John is a bachelor. Therefore, c John cannot marry. The condition a appears to be a Tautology rhetoric tautology and therefore true. The condition b is a statement of fact about John which makes him subject to a that is, b declares John a bachelor, and a states that all bachelors are unmarried. Because c presumes b will always be the case, it is a fallacy of necessity. John, of course, is always free to stop being a bachelor, simply by getting married if he does so, b is no longer true and thus not subject to the tautology logic tautology a . In this case, c has unwarranted necessity by assuming, incorrectly, that John cannot stop being a bachelor. Formally speaking, this type of argument equivocates between the De dicto and de re Context of modality de dicto necessity of a and the De dicto and de re Context of modality de re necessity of c . The argument is only valid if both a and c are construed de re . This, however, would undermine the argument, as a is only a tautology de dicto indeed, interpreted de re , it is false. Formal Fallacy Category Syllogistic fallacies Necessity Category Necessity and sufficiency ... more details
An informal fallacy is an Logical argument argument whose stated premises fail to support their proposed conclusion. ref Kelly, D. 1994 The Art of Reasoning . W W Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 0 393 96466 3 ref The deviation in an informal fallacy often stems from a flaw in the path of reason ing that links the premises to the conclusion. In contrast to a formal fallacy , the error has to do with issues of inference ratiocination manifest in natural language language used to state the propositions the range of elements that can be symbolized by language is broader than that which the symbolism of Mathematical logic formal logic can represent. Deductive and inductive informal fallacies Informal fallacies of deductive reasoning contain a fundamental disconnect between the premises and the conclusion that renders the argument validity invalid . This disconnect often stems from the presence of a hidden co premise that, if presented, would validate the argument. Inductive reasoning Inductive informal fallacies are slightly different from their deductive counterparts, as their merit rests in the Statistical inference inductive strength of the premise conclusion link rather than in the presence of hidden premises. For instance, the fallacy of hasty generalization , can be roughly stated as A is an X A is also a Y Therefore, all X s are also Y s If the populations X and Y are both too large to sample completely, then the statement is inductive. In such a case, a hasty generalization occurs when the number of X s and Y s is insufficient to represent the respective populations. It is important ..., D. Epstein, R. L. Kernberger, C. Others, title Attacking Faulty Reasoning A Practical Guide to Fallacy ... node 350 An Informal Fallacy Primer http www.fallacyfiles.org inforfal.html The Fallacy Files Informal Fallacy http www.appealtoauthority.info Appeal to Authority Appeal to Authority Logical Fallacy Informal Fallacy DEFAULTSORT Informal Fallacy Category Philosophical logic Category Informal ... more details
refimprove date September 2011 The logical fallacy of accident also called destroying the exception or a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid is a deductive reasoning deductive fallacy occurring in statistical syllogisms an argument based on a generalization when an exception to a rule of thumb ref http fallacyfiles.org accident.html ref is ignored. It is one of the thirteen fallacies originally identified by Aristotle . The fallacy occurs when one attempts to apply a general rule to an irrelevant situation. For instance Cutting people with a knife is a crime. Surgeons cut people with knives. Surgeons are criminals. It is easy to construct fallacious arguments by applying general statements to specific incidents that are obviously exceptions. Generalizations that are weak generally have more exceptions the number of exceptions to the generalization need not be a minority of cases and vice versa. This fallacy may occur when we confuse generalizations some for categorical statement s always and everywhere . It may be encouraged when no qualifier qualifying words like some , many , rarely etc. are used to mark the generalization. For example Germans are Nazism Nazis The premise above could be used in an argument concluding that all Germans or current Germans should be held responsible for the actions of the Nazis. Qualifying the major term first term Some Germans are Nazis This premise may make it more obvious that it is making an extremely weak generalization and not a categorical rule. Related Inductive reasoning inductive fallacies include overwhelming exception , hasty generalization . See faulty generalization . The opposing kind of dicto simpliciter fallacy is the converse accident . References Reflist External links http fallacyfiles.org accident.html Fallacy files Accident Informal Fallacy Relevance fallacies Category Relevance fallacies Category Syllogistic fallacies ca Accident fal l cia es Accidente falacia he lt I imtis argumentacija ... more details
Merge to Masked man fallacy date April 2011 Orphan date February 2009 In philosophical logic , the intensional fallacy is committed when one makes an illicit use of Leibniz s law in an argument. Leibniz s law states that, if one object has a certain property, while another object does not have the same property, the two objects cannot be identical. For example, if Clark Kent can fly, and Lois Lane cannot fly, they must be different people. The intensional fallacy occurs when this argument is used with properties that are Extensional context intensional , that is, when the property depends on the description of the object used. In this case, although the object may have a given property under one description, and not have that property under a different description, they may nonetheless be the same object. An example of the intensional fallacy would be Lois Lane believes that Superman can fly. Lois Lane does not believe that Clark Kent can fly. Therefore Superman and Clark Kent are not the same person. The conclusion in this case is false, because what Lois Lane believes depends not on the actual object Clark Kent Superman , but rather on the name used. Intensional sentences are extensionally opaque. These sentences are often intentional with a t , that is they involve a property of the mind that is directed at an object. I can coherently hold at the same time I believe that Muhammed Ali was the heavyweight champion and I don t believe that Cassius Clay was heavyweight champion if I don t know that Muhammed Ali and Cassius Clay were the same person. In my belief, Muhhamed Ali and Cassius Clay fail in their extension. This fallacy was cited by authors Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piattelli Palmarini in their book What Darwin Got Wrong . ref http www.salon.com books feature 2010 02 22 what darwin got wrong jerry fodor ref This fallacy is also known as the epistemic fallacy. See Critical Thinking A Concise Guide 3ed by Tracy Bowell and Gary Kemp. p. 225. References references ... more details
distinguish Historical fallacy The historian s fallacy is a logical fallacy that occurs when one assumes that decision makers of the past viewed events from the same perspective and having the same information as those subsequently analyzing the decision. It is not to be confused with Presentism literary and historical analysis presentism , a mode of historical analysis in which present day ideas such as moral standards are projected into the past. The fallacy was outlined in 1970 by David Hackett Fischer , who suggested it was analogous to William James s psychologist s fallacy . Fischer did not suggest that historians should refrain from retrospective analysis in their work, but he reminded historians that their subjects were not able to see into the future. As an example, he cited the well known argument that Japan s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor should have been predictable in the United States because of the many indications that an attack was imminent. What this argument overlooks, says Fischer, citing the work of Roberta Wohlstetter , is that there were innumerable conflicting signs which suggested possibilities other than an attack on Pearl Harbor. Only in retrospect do the warning signs seem obvious signs which pointed in other directions tend to be forgotten. See also hindsight bias . In the field of military history , historians sometimes use what is known as the fog of war technique in hopes of avoiding the historian s fallacy. In this approach, the actions and decisions of the historical subject such as a military commander are evaluated primarily on the basis of what that person knew at the time, and not on future developments that the person could not have known. According to Fischer, this technique was pioneered by the American historian Douglas Southall Freeman in his influential biographies of Robert E. Lee and George Washington . See also Cognitive bias Hindsight bias List of cognitive biases References Fischer, David Hackett. Historians Fallacies ... more details
Morefootnotes article date March 2011 The phrase naturalistic fallacy , with fallacy referring to a formal fallacy , has several meanings. It can be used to refer to the claim that what is natural is inherently ... fallacy is the converse of the moralistic fallacy , the notion that what is good or right is natural and inherent. The naturalistic fallacy is related to and even confused with the is ought ... stated that a naturalistic fallacy is committed whenever a philosopher attempts to prove a claim ... to nature Some people use the phrase naturalistic fallacy or appeal to nature to characterize inferences .... The naturalistic fallacy is the idea that what is found in nature is good. It was the basis for Social ... depends on the survival of the fittest. Today, biologists denounce the Naturalistic Fallacy because ... books tbs media articles 2002 10 30 upi.html ref The moralistic fallacy is that what is good ... fallacy is also sometimes used to describe the deduction of an ought from an is the Is ought ... deducing an is from an ought either as the reverse naturalistic fallacy or as the moralistic fallacy . An example of a naturalistic fallacy in this sense would be to conclude Social Darwinism from the theory of evolution by natural selection , and of the reverse naturalistic fallacy to argue that the immorality ... natural law theory because in his view it was a naturalistic fallacy, claiming that it described how ... fallacy is committed whenever a philosopher attempts to prove a claim about ethics by appealing ... fallacy to infer from this that goodness and pleasantness are one and the same quality. The naturalistic fallacy is the assumption that because the words good and, say, pleasant necessarily ... of hedonism hedonists . Moore coined the term naturalistic fallacy to describe arguments of this form he explains in http fair use.org g e moore principia ethica s.12 12 that the fallacy involved is an instance of a more general type of fallacy, which he leaves unnamed, but which we might call the definitional ... more details
The genetic fallacy is a ignoratio elenchi fallacy of irrelevance where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone s origin rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation, typically transferring the positive or negative esteem from the earlier context. The fallacy therefore fails to assess the claim on its merit. The first criterion of a good argument is that the premises must have bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim in question. ref Attacking Faulty Reasoning A Practical Guide to Fallacy Free Arguments Third Edition by T. Edward Damer , chapter II, subsection The Relevance Criterion pg. 12 ref Genetic accounts of an issue may be true, and they may help illuminate the reasons why the issue has assumed its present form, but they are irrelevant to its merits. ref With Good Reason An Introduction to Informal Fallacies Fifth Edition by S. Morris Engel, chapter V, subsection 1 pg. 198 ref According to the Oxford Companion to Philosophy 1995 , the term originated in Morris Raphael Cohen and Ernest Nagel s book Logic and Scientific Method ref cite encyclopedia encyclopedia The Oxford Companion to Philosophy article Genetic fallacy editor first Ted editor last Honderich publisher Oxford University Press year 1995 isbn 978 0 19 866132 0 ref 1934 . Examples Two examples are plenty, and we will only accept material that is sourced from a book preferably a textbook on logic. From Attacking Faulty Reasoning by T. Edward Damer, Third Edition p. 36 cquote You re not going to wear a wedding ring , are you? Don t you know that the wedding ring originally symbolized ankle chains worn by women to prevent ... fallacy . This presents arguments based on the supposed real meaning of certain words, where that real ... Genetic fallacy http www.friesian.com genetic.htm Forms of the genetic fallacy http www.fallacyfiles.org genefall.html Fallacy files Genetic fallacy Red Herring Fallacy Category Genetic fallacies Category ... more details
Multiple issues orphan February 2009 refimprove December 2008 The Netherlands fallacy refers to an error in assuming that the environmental impact s of the Netherlands and other rich nations are contained within their national borders. Ecologist s in recent years have begun to analyze the ecological sink capacities of poor nations. As Industrial pollution polluting industries migrate from rich to poor nations, the environmental footprint of rich nations shrinks. The nature of the fallacy is to ignore the increasing environmental impact of developing nations and conclude that global environmental conditions are improving. Bibliography Ehrlich, Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich 1990 The Population Explosion Category Environment environment stub ... more details
The Gambler s fallacy , also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy because its most famous example happened ... 0 618 62011 1 page 66 ref ref http www.fallacyfiles.org gamblers.html Blog Fallacy Files What happened at Monte Carlo in 1913. ref and also referred to as the fallacy of the maturity of chances , is the belief ... between red and blue does not systematically decrease to zero. The gambler s fallacy can be illustrated ... is only frac 1 32 one in thirty two , a believer in the gambler s fallacy might believe that this next ... of the gambler s fallacy the event of 5 heads in a row and the event of first 4 heads, then a tails ... in the future, is the fallacy. Explaining why the probability is 1 2 for a fair coin We can see ... There is another way to emphasize the fallacy. As already mentioned, the fallacy is built on the notion ... to the fallacy, should have a higher chance of winning since one loss has occurred. His .... A joke told among mathematicians demonstrates the nature of the fallacy. When flying on an aircraft ... dropped to zero. Reverse fallacy The reversal is also a fallacy not to be confused with the inverse gambler s fallacy in which a gambler may instead decide that tails are more likely out of some mystical ... to favor tails, the gambler sees no reason to change to heads. Again, the fallacy is the belief that the universe .... The conclusion of this reversed gambler s fallacy may be correct, however, if the empirical evidence ... ten times and lands heads ten times, the gambler s fallacy would suggest an even money bet on tails, while the reverse gambler s fallacy would suggest an even money bet on heads. In this case ... birth Instances of the gambler s fallacy when applied to childbirth can be traced all the way back ... . The role of experience in the gambler s fallacy. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 23, 117 129 ... name lehrer Non examples of the fallacy There are many scenarios where the gambler s fallacy might ... to work for example in the game of blackjack . Meanwhile, the reversed gambler s fallacy may appear ... more details
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