Term
The Appeal To Emotion
(Ad Populum) |
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Definition
Relies on expressive language and other devices calculated to excite enthusiasm for or against some cause; A conclusion defended with premises that are directed mainly at emotions; commercial advertising and patriotism; appeal to pity, generosity, or mercy;
An informal fallacy committed when the support offered for some conclusion is an inappropriate appeal to the patriotism, pity, or the like, of the listeners. |
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Definition
Effectiveness lies in distraction; may be associated with the topic, but is not relevant to the truth of what had originally been in dispute.
An informal fallacy committed when some distraction is used to mislead and confuse. |
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Definition
Argues against some view by presenting an opponent's position as one that is easily torn apart; argues against an extreme version of the opponent's position;
An informal fallacy committed when the position of one's argument is misrepresented and that distorted position is made the object of attack. |
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Term
Argument Against The Person
(Ad Hominem) |
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Definition
Directed not at the conclusion but at the person who defends the conclusion; to disparage the character of one's opponent, to deny their intelligence or reasonableness, to question their understanding, or their seriousness, or their integrity; opponent's personal circumstances as the premise of an argument;
An informal fallacy committed when, instead of attacking the substance of some position, one attacks the person of it's advocate, either abusively or as a consequence of his or her special circumstances. |
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Term
The Appeal To Force
(Ad Baculum) |
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Definition
Threats or strong-arm methods to coerce one's opponents;
An informal fallacy committed when force, or threat of force, is relied on to win consent. |
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Term
Missing The Point
(Ignoratio Elenchi |
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Definition
Person does not fully understand proposition in dispute; refuting, or trying to refute, a claim which was not originally at issue.
An informal fallacy committed when one refutes, not the thesis one's interlocutor is advancing, but some different thesis that one mistakenly imputes to him or her. |
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Term
The Argument From Ignorance
(Ad Ignorantiam) |
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Definition
| Something is likely to be true (or false) because we cannot prove it false (or true). |
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Term
False Cause
(Non Causa Pro Causa) |
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Definition
| Accepting as the cause of an event what is not really its cause. |
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Term
The Appeal To Inappropriate Authority
(Ad Verecundiam) |
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Definition
| An informal fallacy in which the appeal to authority is illegitimate because the authority appealed to has no special claim to expertise on the matter in question. |
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Definition
| A principle that is true of a particular case is applied, carelessly or deliberately, to a great run of cases; e.g., a eating fried foods is healthy because Mary eats nothing but fried foods and she lived to be 110. |
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| A generalization is applied to individual cases that it does not govern/exceptions. |
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| A question is asked in some way to presuppose the truth of some proposition buried in the question (What day of the week did you kill him?) |
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Term
Begging The Question
Peititio Principii |
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Definition
| The conclusion of the argument is stated or assumed in one of the premises. |
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Definition
| Two or more meanings of the same word or phrase have been used; Nobody, small elephant. |
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Definition
| The loose, awkward, or mistaken way in which words are combined, leading to alternative possible meanings of a statement; Gloria is tax deductible. |
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Definition
| Emphasis; A term or phrase has a meaning in the conclusion of an argument different from its meaning in one of the premises, the difference arising chiefly from a change in emphasis given to the words used. |
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Definition
| What is true of the parts must be true of the whole; refrigerator parts all way less than three pounds, so the refrigerator must weigh less than three pounds. |
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Definition
| What is true of the whole is true of the parts; All humans are mortal, Socrates is human, therefore he is mortal; Native Americans are disappearing, that man is Native American, therefore that man is disappearing. |
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