Reading & Writing | Logical Fallacies

• a flaw in reasoning or a flawed structure that undermines the validity of an argument. A fallacious argument can make productive conversation impossible. 

  Logical Fallacy
• Logical fallacies are often used by politicians and the media to fool people because they have the deceptive appearance of being reasonable.
• Also known as Name-Calling or attacking the person

  This fallacy occurs when, instead of addressing someone's argument or position, you irrelevantly attack the person or some aspect of the person who is making the argument. The fallacious attack can also be direct to membership in a group or institution. 

  Ad Hominem
• A technique of persuasion that attempts to influence opinion through deliberate distortions, as in suppressing information, overemphasizing selected facts, manipulating statistics, and quoting rigged or questionable research.

  Card Stacking
• Is a vague word or phrase that's used to evoke positive feelings rather than to convey information. 

  Glittering Generalities
• Uses its own conclusion as one of its stated or unstated premises. Instead of offering proof, it simply asserts the conclusion in another form, thereby inviting the listener to accept it as settled when, in fact, it has not been settled. 

  Circular Argument
• Occurs when an argument presents two options and ignores, either purposefully or out of ignorance, other alternatives.

  Gives the impression that the two opposite options are mutually exclusive and that at least one of them is true, that is, they represent all of the possible options.

  False Dichotomy
• Comparing one thing to another that is really not related, in order to make one thing look more or less desirable than it really is.

  Faulty Comparison
• Observed when the answer does not address the question. It may also happen when one changes the subject to draw away attention from the main issue. 

  Red Herring
• This fallacy makes assumptions about a whole group or range of cases based on a sample that is inadequate. 

  Hasty Generalization
• Also known as stereotyping. 

  It is frequently applied to group behavior in assuming that the behavior displayed by some is indicative or unique to that entire group when it is actually common to many groups. A small incidence is mistaken for a larger trend. 

  Overgeneralization
• Occurs when someone makes a claim about a series of events that would lead to one major event, usually a bad event. 

  Slippery Slope
• This is the presentation of an idea or conclusion that does not follow logically based upon the evidence.  

  Non-sequitor
• This fallacy gets its name from the Latin phrase “post hoc, ergo propter hoc”, which translates “after this, therefore because of this”

  Remember, correlation does not equal causation.

  Post-Hoc
• This happens when a statement of someone who is not an expert in the field in question is being used in an argument. 

  False Authority
• Is a phenomenon where a person is reluctant to abandon or let go of a course of action because of the monetary, physical, or emotional investment done, despite knowing that continuing the course of action is bringing more damage than good.

  Sunk Cost Fallacy
• One attempts to defend oneself or another from criticism by turning the critique back against the accuser. The accuser is guilty of the same, or a similar, wrong that is irrelevant to the truth of the original charge. 

  Tu Quoque
• Goes in the opposite direction from the Appeal to Novelty fallacy by arguing that the when something is old, then this somehow enhances the value or truth of the proposition in question. 

  Appeal to Tradition
• Attempts to persuade using emotion—specifically, sympathy—rather than evidence. Playing on the pity that someone feels for an individual or group can certainly affect what that person thinks about the group; this is a highly effective, and so quite common, fallacy.

  Appeal to Pity
• This simply ignores a person’s actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated and misinterpreted version of that position. 

  Straw Man Argument
• evidences supported by records

  Fact
• law inclined, social construct; based on morality & ethics

  Convention
• debatable, an idea based on fact yet to be proven true/not

  Opinion
• lowest form; doesn't account other variables-limited by what someone sides to

  Preference
• claims that they dominate people's choice

  Bandwagon
• inferred ideas

  Implicit
• directly stated (expose)

  Explicit
• writer's point/position

  central argument (thesis statement)

  Claims
• 3 parts of position paper

  claim

  supporting details

  conclusion
• easily verified by statistics, research & general truths

  Claim of Fact
• can be verified subjectively through observation, social norms, culture, and morality

  Claim of Value
• elicits action

  Claim of Policy
• process of forming reasons by providing several supports/details

  Argumentation
• Rhetorical Appeals

  Ethos (ethics), Pathos (emotional), Logos (logic)