Logic Cards 3

Front 1

Formal Fallacy:

Back 1

One that may be identified by merely examining the form or structure of an argument.

Occur only in deductive arguments.

Front 2

Informal Fallacy:

Back 2

Can be detected only by examining the content of the argument.

Front 3

Fallacies of Relevance:

Back 3

Arguments in which they occur have premises that are logically irrelevant to the conclusion. Often, there appears to be a psychological (emotional) connection.

Front 4

Appeal to Force:

Back 4

Occurs whenever an arguer poses a conclusion to another person and tells that person either implicitly or explicitly that some harm will come to him or her if her or she does no accept the conclusion.

Front 5

Appeal to Pity:

Back 5

Occurs when an arguer attempts to support a conclusion by merely evoking pity from the reader or listener.

Front 6

Appeal to the People:

Back 6

Uses the desire for love/esteem to get the reader or listener to accept a conclusion.

Direct: An arguer, addressing a large group of people, excites the emotions and enthusiasm of the crowd to win acceptance for his conclusion.

Indirect: Arguer aims his appeal not at the crowd as a whole but at one or more individuals separately, focusing on some aspect of their relationship to the crowd.
E.g. bandwagon, vanity, snobbery.

Front 7

Bandwagon Argument:

Back 7

90% of people use X.

The idea is that you will be left behind or left out of the group if you do not use X product.

Front 8

Appeal to Vanity:

Back 8

Often associates the product with someone who is admired, the idea that you, too, will be admired if you use it.

Front 9

Appeal to Snobbery:

Back 9

Rolls Royce example.

Front 10

Ad Hominem Abusive:

Back 10

The second person responds by verbally abusing the first person.

Front 11

Ad Hominem Circumstantial:

Back 11

Begins the same way as Ad Hominem Abusive, but instead of heaping verbal abuse on the opponent, the respondent attempts to discredit the opponent by alluding to certain circumstances that affect the opponent. The idea is to show that the opponent is predisposed to argue in X way and as such, should not be taken seriously.

Front 12

To Quoque (You Too) Fallacy:

Back 12

Begins the same way as the other Ad Hominem arguments, except that the second arguer attempts to make the first appear to be hypocritical or arguing in bad faith. Usually does this by citing features in the life or behaviour of the opponent that conflict with the latter's conclusion.

Front 13

Accident:

Back 13

Committed when a general rule is applied to a specific case it was not intended to cover.

Front 14

Straw Man:

Back 14

Committed when an arguer distorts an opponent's argument for the purpose of more easily attacking it, demolishes the distorted argument, and then concludes that the opponent's real argument has been demolished.

Often done via exaggeration of the person's argument.

Front 15

Missing the Point:

Back 15

Occurs when the premises of an argument support one particular conclusion, but then a different conclusion, often vaguely related to the correct conclusion, is drawn.

Front 16

Red Herring:

Back 16

Committed when the arguer diverts the attention of the reader or listener by changing the subject to a different but sometimes subtly related one.

Front 17

Fallacies of Weak Induction:

Back 17

Connection between premises and conclusion is not strong enough to support the conclusion.

Front 18

Appeal to Unqualified Authority:

Back 18

Variant of the argument from authority, occurs when the cited authority or witness lacks credibility.

Front 19

Appeal to Ignorance:

Back 19

Occurs when the premises of an argument states that nothing has been proved one way or the other about something, and the conclusion then makes a definite assertion about that thing.

Front 20

Hasty Generalization:

Back 20

Occurs when there is a reasonable likelihood that the sample is not representative of the group.

Affects inductive generalizations.

Front 21

False Cause:

Back 21

Occurs whenever the link between premises and conclusion depends on some imagined causal connection that probably does no exist.

Front 22

Slippery Slope:

Back 22

Occurs when the conclusion of an argument rests on an alleged chain reaction and there is not sufficient reason to think that the chain reaction will actually take place.

Front 23

Weak Analogy:

Back 23

Occurs when the analogy is not strong enough to support the conclusion that is drawn.

Front 24

Fallacies of Presumption:

Back 24

Includes begging the question, complex question, false dichotomy, and suppressed evidence.

Front 25

Fallacies of Ambiguity:

Back 25

Includes equivocation and amphiboly.

Front 26

Fallacies of Grammatical Analogy:

Back 26

Includes composition and division.

Front 27

Begging the Question:

Back 27

Committed whenever the arguer creates the illusion that inadequate premises provide adequate support for the conclusion by leaving out a possibly false key premise, by restating a possibly false premise as the conclusion, or by reasoning in a circle.

Front 28

Complex Question:

Back 28

Committed when two or more questions are asked in the guise of a single question and a single answer is then given to both of them.

Front 29

False Dichotomy:

Back 29

Committed when a disjunctive ("either...or...") premise presents two unlikely alternatives as if they were the only ones available, and the arguer then eliminates the undesirable alternative, leaving the desirable one as the conclusion.

Front 30

Suppressed Evidence:

Back 30

Occurs in inductive arguments.

Front 31

Equivocation:

Back 31

Occurs when the conclusion of an argument depends on the fact that a word or phrase is used, either explicitly or implicitly, in two different senses in the argument.

e.g. some triangles are obtuse, whatever is obtuse is ignorant, so some triangles are ignorant.

Front 32

Amphiboly:

Back 32

Occurs when the arguer misinterprets an ambiguous statement and then draws a conclusion based on this faulty interpretation. The ambiguity usually arises from a mistake in grammar or punctuation.

Front 33

Composition:

Back 33

Committed when the conclusion of an argument depends on the erroneous transference of an attribute from the parts of something onto the whole. In other words, the fallacy occurs when it is argued that because the parts have a certain attribute, it follows that the whole has that attribute, too.

Front 34

Division:

Back 34

Reverse of composition.

Occurs when the conclusion of an argument depends on the erroneous transference of an attribute from a while (or a class) onto its parts.