1.1.7.3.1 Reasoning Techniques: The Top Fallacies

Version 1.1 March 2013                                (Previous Version)

Philosophers, logicians, mathematicians, clear thinking teachers, sceptics and argumentative types in general have listed some of the many was in which what is presented as true logic is actually false.

·        Against the Person: (Ad Hominem) Attacking the speaker instead of his argument.

·        Appeal to Authority: (Ad Verecundiam) Basing an argument on an irrelevant, vague or dubious authority.

·        Appeal to Emotion: Persuading by emotion rather than reason.

·        Appeal to Force: (Ad Baculum) Persuading by coercion or threat.

·        Appeal to Ignorance: (Ad Ignorantiam) It must be true because it hasn’t been proved false; or false because it hasn’t be proved true.

·        Appeal to Pity: (Ad Misericordiam) It must be true because… boo hoo hoo.

·        Appeal to the Masses: (Ad Populum) It must be true because it's popular.

·        Appeal to Ridicule: It must be true because… ha ha ha.

·        Appeal to Tradition: It must be true because we’ve always done it that way.

·        Composition: What’s true for the individual part of a whole is true for the entire whole form.

·        Division: What’s true for the entire whole form is true for each of its individual parts.

·        False Alternative: Offering only two options while omitting other relevant, viable options.

·        False Cause (Post Hoc): Establishing a causal relationship from correlation or timing, without sufficient proof.

·        Hasty Generalization: Generalizing from an unrepresentative sample.

·        Middle Ground: The extremes are wrong, so the middle (mean) is correct.

·        Red Herring: Diverting an argument by changing the topic.

·        Selective Evidence: Selectively omitting pertinent evidence.

·        Slippery Slope: Asserting, without sufficient proof, a chain of events.

·        Straw Man: Refuting an argument by attacking a weaker version of it.