LOGICAL FALLACIES

A STATEMENT TAKING A THING FOR TRUE OR GRANTED AND DRAWING A CONCLUSION FROM IT.

EX: I AM NOT LYING, THEREFORE I AM TELLING THE TRUTH.

AN ARGUMENT THAT APPEALS TO EMOTION OR PITY.

EX:

• "Your Honor, my incarceration is cruel and unusual punishment. First, my prison-issued shower sandals are grossly undersized. Secondly, the prison book club consists mainly of prisoners who club me with books."

"YOU TOO"

EX:

• Wilma: You cheated on your income tax. Don't you realize that's wrong?
  Walter: Hey, wait a minute. You cheated on your income tax last year. Or have you forgotten about that?

based on misleading, superficial, or implausible comparisons.

EX:

• "There are seven windows given to animals in the domicile of the head: two nostrils, two eyes, two ears, and a mouth. . . . From this and many other similarities in Nature, too tedious to enumerate, we gather that the number of planets must necessarily be seven."

ONLY TWO POSSIBILITIES

EX: “Either the traffic light is red, or it is green.”

A CONCLUSION DOES NOT FOLLOW LOGICALLY FROM WHAT PRECEDED IT

EX:

• from the facts that most cats like milk and some cats have tails I could not derive the conclusion that David Hume was the greatest British philosopher

To demonstrate the truth of a proposition by citing some person who agrees, even though that person may have no expertise in the given area. "APPEAL TO AUTHORITY"

EX: some people like to quote Einstein's opinions about politics (he tended to have fairly left-wing views), as though Einstein were a political philosopher rather than a physicist.

PERSONAL ATTACK

EX:

1. Bill: "I believe that abortion is morally wrong."
   Dave: "Of course you would say that, you're a priest."
   Bill: "What about the arguments I gave to support my position?"
   Dave: "Those don't count. Like I said, you're a priest, so you have to say that abortion is wrong. Further, you are just a lackey to the Pope, so I can't believe what you say."

SOMETHING IS TRUE/FALSE BASED ON THE FACT IT HASENT BEEN PROVEN YET

EX: In spite of all the talk, not a single flying saucer report has been authenticated. We may assume, therefore, there are not such things as flying saucers.

The fallacy of attempting to win popular assent to a conclusion by arousing the feeling and enthusiasms of the multitude.

EX: "Shell was charged with misleading advertising in its Platformate advertisements. A Shell spokesman said: 'The same comment could be made about most good advertising of most products.'"

A fallacy in which one event is said to be the cause of a later event simply because it occurred earlier.
EX:

• "Malaria was for centuries a baffling plague. It was observed that persons who went out at night often developed the malady. So,
  • night air was assumed to be the cause of malaria, and elaborate precautions were taken to shut it out of sleeping quarters.

1. Event X has occurred (or will or might occur).
2. Therefore event Y will inevitably happen.

EX: "We have to stop the tuition increase! The next thing you know, they'll be charging $40,000 a semester!"