Intro To Philosophy Informal Fallacies

Front 1

Amphiboly
(syntactical ambiguity)

Back 1

A form of confusion that results when the grammatical construction of a statement makes the meaning unclear.
Ex.: The archivists examined an original flag that had led Union soldiers into battle at the Civil War Library and Museum.

Front 2

Semantical ambiguity

Back 2

A form of confusion that results when a word or phrase can have two or more different meanings.
Ex.: The trustees asked security personnel to stop drinking on campus.

Front 3

Equivocation

Back 3

Could be classified as a form of semantical ambiguity.
Often it is employed to establish a conclusion by using a word in two different senses in the same argument.
Ex.: Anyone who is considered old enough to join the army and fight for his country is a mature person; and anyone who votes must be mature, too. So, anyone mature enough to fight is mature enough to vote.

Front 4

Post Hoc

Back 4

The incorrect assumption that merely because two events occur together or in a time sequence, one is the cause of the other.
Ex.: Evelyn carried a rabbit's foot, so naturally she won the race.

Front 5

False dilemma

Back 5

The assumption that an issue has only two sides or that there are only two alternative choices in a situation.
Ex.: People are either Christians or atheists.

Front 6

Argumentum ad ignorantiam

Back 6

The mistaken argument that what one person asserts is true because another person cannot disprove it.
Ex.: God exists because you can't prove that God doesn't exist.

Front 7

Argumentum ad hominem

Back 7

The faulty assumption that if you discredit the person, you thereby discredit his or her argument.
Ex.: What can he know about patriotism? He speaks with a foreign accent.

Front 8

Begging the question

Back 8

The argument is based on the conclusion you are trying to prove. The argument moves in a circle and says the same thing twice.
Ex.: Learning is important because everyone should acquire knowledge.

Front 9

Hypothesis contrary to fact.

Back 9

Claiming that one can know with certainty what WOULD have happened if a past event or condition had been different from what it actually was.
Ex.: If my father had been rich, I would be a successful surgeon today.

Front 10

Straw man

Back 10

Misrepresenting a statement or an argument, or substituting another one, in order to attack the original statement or argument more easily.
Ex.: Go ahead and build your nuclear power plant. I guess you don't care about the environment.

Front 11

False obversion

Back 11

The misuse of contrasts and opposites; the faulty assertion that if a statement is true, its opposite must therefore also be true.
Ex.: Children learn easily; therefore, adults learn with difficulty.

Front 12

False conversion

Back 12

The switching of subject and predicate in a statement with the result that the new statement does not meet the requirements for correct reasoning.
Ex.: All patriots salute the flag; therefore, all who salute the flag are patriots.

Front 13

Testimonial

Back 13

Directing attention to a well-known or attractive person in order to create a positive image of a product or cause that might be temporarily associated with that person.
Ex.: I always buy Bulgarian motor cars because on TV my favorite movie star says they are well made.

Front 14

Bandwagon

Back 14

Appealing to common practice (whether actual or alleged) in order to get others to do something or to share the same point of view.
Ex.: Chew Bozo bubble gum--ten million people can't be wrong.

Front 15

Reification

Back 15

The practice of treating a word or a concept as if it were a thing with a life or power of its own.
Ex.: Science will turn all of us into robots.