Fallacies

Front 1

Argument from Ignorance

Back 1

speaker argues that what he says is true because it hasn't been disproved or what his opponent says is false because it hasn't been proved.

Front 2

Argument from bare possibility

Back 2

speaker argues that something is the case, or there is good enough reason to believe it to be the case, merely because it may be the case.

Front 3

Straw Man fallacy

Back 3

speaker deliberately misinterprets position or argument of opponent and then refutes his misinterpretation and thereby urges his audience to reject his opponent's actual position.

Front 4

Faulty Analogy

Back 4

speaker gives a weak analogical argument

Front 5

Argument from authority

Back 5

speaker argues that what he is saying is true merely because an authority (a well-respected person or other source of information) says, believes, or pronounces that it is true.

Front 6

Abusive ad hominem

Back 6

speaker points out his opponent has a character defect, or is associated with people who are known to have a character defect, and urges audience to reject what his opponent says.

Front 7

Circumstantial ad hominem

Back 7

speaker urges the audience to reject what the opponent is saying because he is biased or is guilty of hypocrisy.

Front 8

Tu quoque

Back 8

speaker argues that his opponent's criticism or advice is mistaken because the opponent is guilty of the same wrongdoing he accuses others of or he doesn't follow his own advice

Front 9

Genetic fallacy

Back 9

speaker tries to get a proposition dismissed on the basis of the source or origin of the belief in the proposition.

Front 10

Appeal to pity

Back 10

speaker tries to get audience to feel sorry for him or someone so that the audience will go along with what he says

Front 11

Appeal to emotions

Back 11

speaker arouses (stirs up) the emotions (fears, prejudges, hopes, etc.) so that the audience will go along with what he is saying.

Front 12

Appeal to common belief

Back 12

speaker assumes that whatever most people believe to be the case is the case or is probably the case.

Front 13

Appeal to common practice

Back 13

an activity is justified or acceptable (or one should engage in the activity) because others are currently engaged in the activity

Front 14

Appeal to tradition

Back 14

a belief is true because people in the past have believed it or one should engage in an activity (or an activity must be justified) because people in the past have engaged in that activity.

Front 15

Appeal to force

Back 15

speaker compels audience to accept what he is saying by threatening the audience with physical of psychological harm.

Front 16

Ignoring the question

Back 16

speaker directs a line of argumentation at establishing a conclusion that is not pertinent to the issue at hand.

Front 17

Non sequitur

Back 17

argument in which the premises have no logical connection with the conclusion.

Front 18

Complex question

Back 18

speaker asks his opponent a misleading, problematic question (complex question) and makes an illicit conclusion from his response, regardless of what the response is.

Front 19

False dilemma

Back 19

speaker presents only two options from which to choose, or argues that the two are the only options because the two positions cannot both be true, and then rules out one options in order to encourage the audience to accept the other option.

Front 20

Fallacy of accident

Back 20

speaker defends his particular conclusion by misapplying a generalization to a case where the generalization does not apply.

Front 21

Hasty generalization

Back 21

speaker presents a weak inductive generalization because there is insufficient data to support the conclusion

Front 22

Biased sampling

Back 22

speaker reaches unfounded conclusion about a population based on data that is not representative of that population

Front 23

False cause (post hoc)

Back 23

speaker attempts to convince an audience that the first event is the cause of the second event merely because the one event followed the other.

Front 24

Begging the question

Back 24

speaker gives an argument in which the conclusion is actually one of the premises or the premises could only be accepted by someone who already accepts the truth of conclusion

Front 25

Questionable premise

Back 25

speaker offers as a premise a statement that is controversial (and needs to be defended) but is not argued for by the speaker.

Front 26

Fallacy of equivocation

Back 26

speaker reaches an illicit conclusion from premises that contain a common term that is used in two different senses or speaker misinterprets a semantically ambiguous claim in order to reach an illicit conclusion.

Front 27

Fallacy of amphiboly

Back 27

speaker draws an illicit inference from a syntactically ambiguous claim

Front 28

Fallacy of accent

Back 28

speaker deliberately uses language in such a way as to imply something that is false or something that is not supported by the evidence.

Front 29

Fallacy of composition

Back 29

to reason fallaciously from what is true to the parts of a whole to what is true of the whole or reason fallaciously from what is true of a population distributively to what is true of the population collectively.

Front 30

Fallacy of division

Back 30

to reason fallaciously from what is true of a whole to what is true of the parts of a whole or reason fallaciously from what is true of a population collectively to what is true of the population distributively.