Fallacies

Front 1

Begging the question

Back 1

Arguing from a premise which is only accepted by people who already share your opinion on the answer to the question.

Front 2

Missing the point

Back 2

Drawing a conclusion to a related but different subject matter than the issue at hand.

Front 3

Red herring

Back 3

Pursuing an irrelevant (side) issue.

Front 4

Complex question

Back 4

Trying to tie several issues together and get one answer to them all. What you need to do is separate the issues and answer each individually.

Front 5

Composition

Back 5

Arguing that since each member of a group has a property that the group also has it.

For example, since no single cell in the human body is intelligent it follows that the body cannot be the basis of human intelligence. Generally such arguments suppose that collections are no different than the things which make up the collections, that there are no collective properties.

Front 6

Accident

Back 6

Applying a general rule to a case which is clearly an exception.

Front 7

False dichotomy

Back 7

Supposing that there are only two (or a very few) options.

Front 8

Straw man

Back 8

Arguing against an oversimplified version of a position rather than the full and more defensible one.

Front 9

Amphiboly

Back 9

An inference which depends upon ambiguous grammar.

Front 10

Division

Back 10

Arguing that each member of a group must have the very same properties held by the group as a whole.

For example, since your team beat my team that EACH player on your team must be better (at their position) than EACH player on mine. (As if no bad team can have good players.)

Front 11

Slippery slope

Back 11

Arguing that since TWO cases are almost the same that they have to be or can be judged the same. Then introducing a THIRD (and so on) with the result that eventually the judgment is obviously so far removed from the original case that IT TOO has to be rejected. It is the use of the third and other cases that make the slippery slope.

Analogies among two cases do not commit this fallacy.

Front 12

Appeal to force

Back 12

Trying to win the debate by threat

Front 13

Appeal to ignorance

Back 13

Supposing that something must be the case just because it has never been refuted.

Front 14

Division

Back 14

Arguing that each member of a group must have the very same properties held by the group as a whole.

For example, since your team beat my team that EACH player on your team must be better (at their position) than EACH player on mine. (As if no bad team can have good players.)

Front 15

Appeal to the people, direct variety

Back 15

Trying to get the members of a group to accept a position without allowing them to think for themselves. This frequently involves an US against THEM strategy. In the direct variety, there is an appeal to the group as a whole to take a single position with no room for dissent.

Front 16

Equivocation

Back 16

An inference which depends upon understanding a single word in two different ways

Front 17

Suppressed evidence

Back 17

The premises are true but leave out relevant information which should be known to anyone offering the premises

Front 18

Appeal to the people, indirect variety

Back 18

Trying to get a person to join the others in a group who already accept a position on the grounds that the others accept it. In the indirect variety the others already accept the view and you are being asked to join with them.

Front 19

False cause

Back 19

Confusing correlation with causality.

For example, suppose you notice that the last few times you went of a date on Saturday night that you got a good grade on the exams you took on Monday morning.

It is a fallacy of FALSE CAUSE to infer that you got the good grade because you went on the date.

Front 20

Tu quoque

Back 20

An attempt to cast doubt upon a position by arguing that those who accept it are hypocritical. We can learn from the mistakes of others

Front 21

Appeal to unqualified authority

Back 21

Accepting the judgment of an expert when he or she is speaking in an area outside of their expertise

Front 22

Argument against the person, abusive

Back 22

Trying to refute a persons views by casting doubt about their character. This is only acceptable where the issue is how confident we should be in what they say.

Front 23

Weak analogy

Back 23

The two things being compared are alike in some respects but the argument overlooks significant ways in which they are different

Front 24

Argument against the person, circumstantial

Back 24

Trying to cast doubt upon a person's views by stressing reasons why they might be prejudiced about the topic. Even prejudiced people might be correct.

For example, even a person who would benefit from a tax might correctly point out its need.

Front 25

Hasty generalization (converse accident)

Back 25

Generalizing from what is obviously an exceptional and unusual case.