The 16 Fallacies of Argument - for a better debating experience

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The 16 Fallacies of Argument - for a better debating experience
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flag gabor
Posted: Oct 1, 2008 at 11:58 Quote
Many thanks to Marty (marty660) typing it all up, cheers! Smile

[Quoten]
The 16 Fallacies of Argument as from the theories of Logic

Fallacies of Reason

Appeal to Force - When someone in a position of power makes threatening statements to form a conclusion, e.g. I'm the teacher here, and I say that Kim Campbell was Canada's greatest prime minister. Therefore, Kim Campbell is Canada's greatest prime minister.

Appeal to Pity - Tries to force a conclusion by evoking sympathy, e.g. Hey, I'm just a teenager whose only method of transportation is a skateboard. If you give me this ticket, officer, my parents will take away my skateboard and I won't be able to attend school. Wouldn't that make you feel bad?

Appeal to Emotion - Relies on emotionally charged language to arouse strong feelings and force a conclusion, e.g. As all clear thinking residents of our fine province have already realized, Candidate X's plan for financing public housing is nothing but the bloody-fanged wolf of free market capitalism cleverly disguised in the harmless sheep's clothing of concern for children. I urge you to reject this plan - and this candidate.

Irrelevant Conclusion - Tries to establish the truth of a proposition by offering an argument that supports a different conclusion, e.g. Kids need alot of attention, and working parents don't have as much time to provide this attention as stay-at-home parents, so mothers should not work outside the home.

Appeal to Authority - Where the opinion of someone famous or accomplished is offered as a guarantee of the truth of a conclusion, e.g. On Dude Radio, I heard Jennifer Lopez say that spiders are insects. So spiders must be insects.

Attack on the Person - Attacks the person who makes the argument, e.g. So you think that a 12-month school year would be a good thing? Well, you're a terrible student and your locker's a complete mess. So your opinions aren't worth considering.

Appeal to Ignorance - Tries to argue that something is true because it has not been proven false, or that something must be false because it has not been proven true, e.g. No one has proven that there is no intelligent life on the moons of Jupiter, right? So you have to admit that intelligent life exists on the moons of Jupiter.

Fallacies of Presumption

Accident - Begins with a statement that is true as a general rule, then errs by applying this principle to a specific case that is unusual in some way, e.g. Hey you-know the rule - always tidy your room. Don't talk to me about the fire in the corner. Just get that room cleaned up.

Converse Accident- Inverse of that above, e.g. Felix Potvin likes cats, and he sure is an excellent goalie. I guess this means that people who like cats make excellent goalies.

False Cause - Infers the presence of a casual connection simply because events seem to be related in times or place, e.g. I watched a movie on Thursday night, and I woke up with a sore throat on Friday. I'm not going to watch movies any more because they give me a sore throat.

Begging the Question - Bases the conclusion of an argument on a premise or premises which need to be proven as much as the conclusion, e.g. Capital punishment is necessary. People who kill others in car crashes should be executed.

Complex Question - Presupposes the truth of a conclusion by including it in the statement of the premise or premises of the argument, e.g. Have you stopped watching so much television? You haven't stopped? Well then, you're still watching way too much television.

Fallacies of Ambiguity

note: A word is "ambiguous" if it can be interpreted in more than one way.

Equivocation - Use an ambiguous word or phrase in two or more different ways within the same argument, e.g. Really exciting novels are rare, and rare books are expensive. So really exciting novels must be expensive.

Amphiboly - Occur when the construction of a sentence creates ambiguity, e.g. Most stores carry jeans for people with 32 waists.

Composition - Drawing a conclusion about a whole or a group based on features of its parts, e.g. You like gelatin, marshmallows, and pickles, so I know you're going to love the gelatin-marshmallow-and-pickle salad that's on the lunch menu in the cafeteria.

Division - The inverse of fallacies of composition; that is, they involve a drawing conclusion about a part based on the properties of the whole, e.g. Zuhair's parents live in a fancy condominium complex, so their apartments must be fancy.[/Quoten]
Philosophy: Questions and Theories, McGarw-Hill Ryerson, 2003. pp. 76-80.

 


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