Fallacy Watch

The Game is Afoot....

I expect to see a lot of logical fallacies between now and November, and I am planning on occasionally making fodder of certain poorly thought arguments.

I hope to help take some of the baby steps into beginning a new Age of Reason!

Here are a formal list (thanks to Wikipedia):


Formal fallacies are arguments that are fallacious due to an error in their form or technical structure. All formal fallacies are specific types of non sequiturs.

1. Appeal to probability: because something could happen, it is inevitable that it will happen. This is the premise on which Murphy's Law is based.
2. Argument from fallacy: if an argument for some conclusion is fallacious, then the conclusion must necessarily be false.
3. Bare assertion fallacy: premise in an argument is assumed to be true purely because it says that it is true.
4. Base rate fallacy: using weak evidence to make a probability judgment without taking into account known empirical statistics about the probability.
5. Conjunction fallacy: assumption that specific conditions are more probable than a single general one.
6. Correlative based fallacies
7. Denying the correlative: where attempts are made at introducing alternatives where there are none
8. Suppressed correlative: where a correlative is redefined so that one alternative is made impossible
9. Fallacy of necessity: a degree of unwarranted necessity is placed in the conclusion based on the necessity of one or more of its premises
10. False dilemma (false dichotomy): where two alternative statements are held to be the only possible options, when in reality there are several
11. If-by-whiskey: An answer that takes side of the questioner's suggestive question
12. Ignoratio elenchi (irrelevant conclusion or irrelevant thesis)
13. Homunculus fallacy: where a "middle-man" is used for explanation, this usually leads to regressive middle-man explanations without actually explaining the real nature of a function or a process
14. Masked man fallacy: the substitution of identical designators in a true statement can lead to a false one
15. Naturalistic fallacy: a fallacy that claims that if something is natural, then it is "good" or "right"
16. Nirvana fallacy: when solutions to problems are said not to be right because they are not perfect
17. Negative proof fallacy: that because a premise cannot be proven true, that premise must be false
18. Package-deal fallacy: when two or more things have been linked together by tradition or culture are said to stay that way forever


19. Propositional fallacies:

20. Affirming a disjunct: concluded that one logical disjunction must be false because the other disjunct is true.
21. Affirming the consequent: the antecedent in an indicative conditional is claimed to be true because the consequent is true. Has the form if A, then B; B, therefore A
22. Denying the antecedent: the consequent in an indicative conditional is claimed to be false because the antecedent is false; if A, then B; not A, therefore not B


23. Quantificational fallacies:

24. Existential fallacy: an argument has two universal premises and a particular conclusion, but the premises do not establish the truth of the conclusion
25. Illicit conversion: the invalid conclusion that because a statement is true, the inverse must be as well
26. Proof by example: where things are proved by giving an example

27. Syllogistic fallacies are logical fallacies that occur in syllogisms.
28. Affirmative conclusion from a negative premise
29. Fallacy of exclusive premises: a categorical syllogism that is invalid because both of its premises are negative
30. Fallacy of four terms: a categorical syllogism has four terms
31. Illicit major: a categorical syllogism that is invalid because its major term is undistributed in the major premise but distributed in the conclusion
32. Illicit minor: a categorical syllogism that is invalid because its minor term is undistributed in the minor premise but distributed in the conclusion.
33. Fallacy of the undistributed middle: the middle term in a categorical syllogism is not distributed
34. Categorical syllogism: an argument with a positive conclusion, but one or two negative premises


35. Informal fallacies are arguments that are fallacious for reasons other than structural ("formal") flaws.

36. Argument from repetition (argumentum ad nauseam)
37. Appeal to ridicule: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made by presenting the opponent's argument in a way that makes it appear ridiculous
38. Argument from ignorance ("appeal to ignorance")
39. Begging the question ("petitio principii"): where the conclusion of an argument is implicitly or explicitly assumed in one of the premises
40. Burden of proof
41. Circular cause and consequence
42. Continuum fallacy (fallacy of the beard)
43. Correlation does not imply causation (cum hoc ergo propter hoc)
44. Equivocation
45. Fallacies of distribution
46. Division: where one reasons logically that something true of a thing must also be true of all or some of its parts
47. Ecological fallacy
48. Fallacy of many questions (complex question, fallacy of presupposition, loaded question, plurium interrogationum)
49. Fallacy of the single cause
50. Historian's fallacy
51. False attribution
52. Fallacy of quoting out of context
53. False compromise/middle ground
54. Gambler's fallacy: the incorrect belief that the likelihood of a random event can be affected by or predicted from other, independent events
55. Incomplete comparison
56. Inconsistent comparison
57. Intentional fallacy
58. Loki's Wager
59. Lump of labour fallacy (fallacy of labour scarcity, zero-sum fallacy)
60. Moving the goalpost
61. No true Scotsman
62. Perfect solution fallacy: where an argument assumes that a perfect solution exists and/or that a solution should be rejected because some part of the problem would still exist after it was implemented
63. Post hoc ergo propter hoc: also known as false cause, coincidental correlation or correlation not causation.
64. Proof by verbosity (argumentum verbosium)
65. Psychologist's fallacy
66. Regression fallacy
67. Reification (hypostatization)
68. Retrospective determinism (it happened so it was bound to)
69. Special pleading: where a proponent of a position attempts to cite something as an exemption to a generally accepted rule or principle without justifying the exemption
70. Suppressed correlative: an argument which tries to redefine a correlative (two mutually exclusive options) so that one alternative encompasses the other, thus making one alternative impossible
71. Sunk cost fallacy
72. Wrong direction


73. Faulty generalizations:

74. Accident (fallacy): when an exception to the generalization is ignored
75. Cherry picking
76. Composition: where one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some (or even every) part of the whole
77. Dicto simpliciter
78. Converse accident (a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter): when an exception to a generalization is wrongly called for
79. False analogy
80. Hasty generalization (fallacy of insufficient statistics, fallacy of insufficient sample, fallacy of the lonely fact, leaping to a conclusion, hasty induction, secundum quid)
81. Loki's Wager: insistence that because a concept cannot be clearly defined, it cannot be discussed
82. Misleading vividness
83. Overwhelming exception
84. Spotlight fallacy
85. Thought-terminating cliché: a commonly used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to quell cognitive dissonance.

86. A red herring is an argument, given in response to another argument, which does not address the original issue. See also irrelevant conclusion

87. Ad hominem: attacking the personal instead of the argument. A form of this is reductio ad Hitlerum.
88. Argumentum ad baculum ("appeal to force", "appeal to the stick"): where an argument is made through coercion or threats of force towards an opposing party
89. Argumentum ad populum ("appeal to belief", "appeal to the majority", "appeal to the people"): where a proposition is claimed to be true solely because many people believe it to be true
90. Association fallacy & Guilt by association
91. Appeal to authority: where an assertion is deemed true because of the position or authority of the person asserting it
92. Appeal to consequences: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument concludes a premise is either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences for a particular party
93. Appeal to emotion: where an argument is made due to the manipulation of emotions, rather than the use of valid reasoning
94. Appeal to fear: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made by increasing fear and prejudice towards the opposing side
95. Wishful thinking: a specific type of appeal to emotion where a decision is made according to what might be pleasing to imagine, rather than according to evidence or reason
96. Appeal to spite: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made through exploiting people's bitterness or spite towards an opposing party
97. Appeal to flattery: a specific type of appeal to emotion where an argument is made due to the use of flattery to gather support
98. Appeal to motive: where a premise is dismissed, by calling into question the motives of its proposer
99. Appeal to novelty: where a proposal is claimed to be superior or better solely because it is new or modern
100. Appeal to poverty (argumentum ad lazarum)
101. Appeal to wealth (argumentum ad crumenam)
102. Argument from silence (argumentum ex silentio)
103. Appeal to tradition: where a thesis is deemed correct on the basis that it has a long standing tradition behind it
104. Chronological snobbery: where a thesis is deemed incorrect because it was commonly held when something else, clearly false, was also commonly held
105. Genetic fallacy
106. Judgmental language
107. Poisoning the well
108. Sentimental fallacy: it would be more pleasant if; therefore it ought to be; therefore it is
109. Straw man argument
110. Style over substance fallacy
111. Texas sharpshooter fallacy
112. Two wrongs make a right
113. Tu quoque


114. Conditional or questionable fallacies

115. Definist fallacy
116. Slippery slope