Recognizing Fallacies
The word fallacy comes from Latin fallere, to deceive. Fallacies can be divided into the three main areas of credibility, logic, and emotionto help you remember and doublecheck for their appearance within arguments you read or write.
Ethical Fallacies of Credibility <ethos>
Ad Hominem: a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author of or the person presenting the claim or argument
Guilt by Association: a person rejects a claim simply because it is pointed out that people he/she dislikes accept the claim.
Appeal to Authority: the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject.
Begging the Question: the premises include the claim that the conclusion is true or (directly or indirectly) assume that the conclusion is true. Interviewer: "Your resume looks impressive but I need another referece." Bill: "Jill can give me a good reference." Interviewer: "Good. But how do I know that Jill is trustworthy?" Bill: "I can vouch for her."
Fallacy of Composition: a conclusion is drawn about a whole based on the features of its constituents when, in fact, no justification is provided for the inference. (Atoms are colorless. Cats are made of atoms; therefore, cats are colorless. !!)
Fallacy of Division: false assumption that what is true of the whole must also be true of its constituents. (The ball is red. The ball is made of atoms; therefore, atoms are red.)
Confusing Cause and Effect: false assumption that because A and B regularly occur together, A is the cause of B.
Hasty Generalization: a person draws a conclusion about a population based on a sample that is not large enough.
Red Herring: an irrelevant topic is presented in order to divert attention from the original issue.
Slippery Slope: a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another without any argument for the inevitability of the event in question.
Post Hoc: one event causes another simply because the poposed cause occurred before the proposed effect.
Non Sequitur: an attempt to tie together two or more logically unrelated ideas.
Either-Or Fallacy: asserts that a complex situation can have only two possible outcomes. Also called: Oversimplification.
Fallacies Appealing to Emotion <pathos>
Appeal to Fear
Appeal to Flattery
Appeal to Pity
Appeal to Popularity
Appeal to Ridicule
Appeal to Spite
Appeal to Tradition
Bandwagon
False Analogies: comparisons between two situations that are not alike in more or important aspects.