I've been writing a gigantic e$ rant, :-), which I haven't done in a while, and so I've left things to pile up in my POP account until I was done. I'm done, and I'm still bashing the (blatant :-)) silliness out of it, and will send it here soon. In the meantime, I wanted to find a quick and dirty list of informal logical fallacies, and, while I was at it, I bumped into Mission:Critical, which is fairly comprenensive website on logic an critical thinking. Evidently you can earn college credit on it, for those of you who need college credit. :-). Here it is. http://www.sjsu.edu/depts/itl/ Also, I've found a reasonable list of informal fallacies, from <http://ddi.digital.net/~setzerl/LOGIC.htm>, (which see for applicable attributions) which I've appended here. That way, you can all keep score at home. Expect me to use a bunch, whether I want to or not... :-). Notice that argumentum ad hominem is when you discount someone's opinion because of who they are or what they do. Vuperative insults, it seems, are another thing altogether. :-). It's a shame that Tim seems to have killfiled me at this point. Usually, I like it, because then I can post stuff here without him tearing me a new asshole very time. This time, since I'm doing the tearing, maybe he's just hiding. Which is fine, because he can run, but he can't hide on this crap anymore... More in a bit, when I get e$pam all caught up. Cheers, Bob Hettinga ------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slick Maneuver Identification Table #1 Fallacies of Oversimplification SLICK MANEUVER EXAMPLE Special Pleading or "During a period of war sales Card-Stacking: Stacks the deck of increase, prices rise, and greater evidence to facilitate a desired profits are made. Therefore wars are outcome. brought about by persons who profit financially from them." Genetic Fallacies: Attempt to reduce the significance of a "Our nation cherishes freedom today, movement or a state of affairs since many of the founders of the merely to a proposed account of republic were men who prized freedom its origins or earliest more than life itself." antecedents. False Cause: Oversimplifies the relevant antecedents of a given "Rome fell because its leaders series of events. quarreled among themselves." False Analogy: Takes two or more objects which are similar in some "Minds, like rivers, can be broad. The ways and makes an unwarranted broader the river, the shallower it inference about the additional is. Therefore, the broader the mind, ways in which such objects could the shallower it is." be similar. Black-and-White Fallacy: Overlooks both gradations and "All politicians are either highly additional alternatives between efficient or completely inept." extreme positions. Accident: Applies a general "If it is wrong to break into a cabin, principle to an exceptional case then a cabin should not entered to without critical examination or save a party from freezing even though regard to context. they are caught in a blizzard." "Since it is permissible for a student Converse Accident: Generalizes to delay handing in his assignment if from an exceptional case to a he is called home on an emergency, it proposed general principle. is permissible for a student to delay handing in an assignment whenever he chooses to do so." "Smith, Jones, and Brown are members Hasty Generalization: Reaches a of labor unions and each of them is generalized conclusion on the interested in gaining the maximum pay basis of too limited a range of with the least amount of work. examples. Therefore, all members of labor unions are interested only in gaining the highest wage for the least work." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slick Maneuver Identification Table #2 Fallacies of Misuse of Appeal to Emotions SLICK MANEUVER EXAMPLE The Misuse of Appeal to Laughter: "Anyone who accepts the conclusions of Diverts attention from the my opponent would also be forced to central issues and stifles accept the view that the tail wags the serious thought and analysis. dog." The Appeal to Pity (Argumentum Ad "John deserves a 'C' in this class Misericordiam): Replaces relevant since his parents have sacrificed to evidence for a conclusion with a send him to college and he will not bid for the sympathy of an graduate if he receives a lower audience. grade." The Appeal to Reverence: Replaces "We must beware of foreign entangling relevant evidence for a alliances since Washington, the conclusion with a bid for respect founder of our nation, warned us for traditions. against taking such a course of action." The Bandwagon Fallacy: Appeals to an interest in following the "You ought to buy a small European crowd and doing as they do rather sports car as all members of the smart than to adequate evidence crowd now own one of these cars." justifying a conclusion. "I'm sure that you will recognize that The Common-Folks Appeal: Appeals I am more competent than my opponent. to attempts to secure acceptance When I was in high school I had to get of a conclusion by the speaker's up at four-thirty every morning to identification with the everyday deliver papers. In college I was concerns and feelings of an barely able to make C's and had to do audience rather than on the basis janitorial work in order to make ends of adequate evidence. meet to put myself through school. Therefore, I would make a better Congressman." Appeal to the Gallery (Argumentum "As you union members know, I am a Ad Populum): Seeks acceptance of champion of the labor movement, and a point of view by an emotional seek to eliminate exploitation of the reaffirmation of a speaker's common worker by big business. support of values, traditions, Therefore, you know you can trust my interests, prejudices, or judgment when I say that this provincial concerns shared widely agricultural legislation will be good by members of an audience. for the country." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slick Maneuver Identification Table #3 Fallacies of Involved or Complex Assumptions SLICK MANEUVER EXAMPLE Begging the Question (Petitio Principii): Assumes what needs to be "All the events in nature are proven and offers this assumption as determined. Human events are evidence for a conclusion that only part of the events in nature. particularizes the assumption or that Therefore, human events are restates an equivalent form of the determined." original assumption. Arguing in a Circle: Uses a premise as "Democracy is desirable because evidence to establish a conclusion, it promotes freedom of inquiry. and this conclusion is used as But why is freedom of inquiry evidence to establish the original desirable? Because it promotes premise. democracy." Name-Tagging: Assumes the attachment of labels to persons or things "This application is easy to constitute evidence for conclusions use. Look at its label, 'Easy about the objects to which the labels Applicator.'" are applied. "Anything that you say would be Poisoning the Wells: Discredits the influenced by your interest in source of proposed evidence, so that civil rights. You may make your the evidence is ruled out prior to any statement, but we shall know consideration of its merits. beforehand that it will be distorted and unreliable." Complex Question: Assumes or presupposes a certain state of affairs, so that any answer involves "Have you stopped telling lies?" the granting of the assumption. Leading Question: "Plants" a proposed "You do believe that longer answer to a question by the manner in vacations are desirable, do you which the question is asked. not?" Contradictory Assumptions: Attempts to make two or more contradictory "What would happen if an assumptions, thus violating the irresistible force met an Aristotelian rule of "either-or." immovable object?" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slick Maneuver Identification Table #4 Fallacies of Imprecision in the Use of Language SLICK MANEUVER EXAMPLE The Misuse of Vague "You claim that you believe in free Expressions: Occurs if a enterprise, yet you accept socialistic conclusion not justified by practices of government like the War on evidence is attributable to Poverty and Medicare. The American way the misinterpretation of a of life has never endorsed a policy of vague expression. providing something for nothing." The Fallacy of Simple Ambiguity: Results from an effort to establish a "We cannot expect John to come since he conclusion by interpreting a said, 'Nothing will deter me from statement in a manner not coming.'" justified by the context. The Fallacy of Equivocation: "Everything subject to law is subject to Changes or shifts the meaning a lawgiver. The natural order is subject of a key expression in the to a law. Therefore, the natural order middle of an argument. is subject to a lawgiver." The Fallacy of Amphibole: Occurs if a conclusion not "No cat has nine tails. Any cat has one justified by evidence is based more tail than no cat. Therefore, any upon ambiguity attributed to cat has ten tails." the syntax of a sentence. The Fallacy of Ambiguity of Significance: Occurs in the "A period of higher unemployment is drawing of an improper developing, since there was a one conclusion by percent increase in the rate of misinterpretation of the unemployment in January." significance of a statement. A theme was returned to a student with The Fallacy of Accent: Occurs the notation, "Some parts of this theme when improper emphasis is are good and other parts interesting. placed upon a word, phrase, or The interesting parts are inaccurate and a sentence and on this basis a the good parts were copied." The student conclusion is inferred. wrote his parents, "The grader wrote that my theme was 'good' and 'interesting.'" The Fallacy of Division: "Since surgeons have spent many years in Infers that the property of an perfecting appendectomies, Dr. James organized whole also Doe, the new surgeon in our town, has characterizes the parts of the spent many years in perfecting his whole. technique in performing appendectomies." The Fallacy of Composition: "Since the members of this team are the Infers that the qualities or best players of their respective characteristics of parts of a positions in the conference, a team whole must also characterize composed of these players would be the the whole itself. best team in the conference." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Slick Maneuver Identification Table #5 Fallacies of Irrelevance SLICK MANEUVER EXAMPLE Fallacies Misusing Appeals to Authoritative Sources: Support a conclusion by appeals to "Man must be immortal because this documents, generally held belief has tended to be present in beliefs, or the opinions of such widely differing societies in well-known persons that are not highly divergent circumstances over particularly germane or qualified such a long span of history." to deal with the point at issue. The Appeal to Force (Argumentum "You should accept the view that our Ad Baculum): Substitutes force or protection society can strengthen the the threat of its use for sales of your product. Otherwise you rational evidence in the support might find that your machinery has of a conclusion. been damaged and that your labor troubles increase." The Appeal to the Man (Argumentum Ad Hominem): Seeks to prove a "The statement of this witness cannot conclusion false by attacking the be accepted as reliable, since he character, reputation, participated in a protest associations, or social demonstration against the United situations of the person States' foreign policy when he was a proposing it. student in college." The Argument from Intimidation: Asserts arbitrarily that a person's idea is false and then uses the assertion as proof of "John asserts that no man is his that person's immorality. This brother's keeper. This is a false fallacy was identified by Ayn idea. Therefore, John is immoral." Rand in The Virtue of Selfishness. The Appeal to Ignorance (Argumentum Ad Ignorantium): Advances the position that if one "Since you cannot disprove that there conclusion in an argument cannot are flying saucers, you should accept be established convincingly, then as reliable the reports of those the opposing view can be claiming to have seen such objects." accepted. "Any high school graduate should be The Fallacy of an Irrelevant admitted to any university supported Conclusion or of "Missing the by taxes in his state, since he Point of the Evidence" (Ignoratio should be assured of all privileges Elenchi): Stresses factors that of citizenship guaranteed to him by may support a conclusion other the Constitution, his family also than the one proposed. pays taxes in that particular state, and he can get a better job if he is a graduate of a university." The Argumentative Leap (Non Sequitur): Jumps to a conclusion "The electoral college is subject to with no immediate basis for extreme criticism. Therefore, drawing the proposed conclusion presidential candidates should be provided internally within the nominated by popular votes rather argument. than by political conventions." Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc (After This, Therefore Because of This): Suggests that because one event "John had a cold. John took large follows another, the former must doses of vitamin C. The cold have caused the latter, without subsided. Therefore, the large doses showing a causal link. This of vitamin C caused the cold to fallacy was identified by Frank subside." R. Wallace in The Neo-Tech Discovery. ----- ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/ Ask me about FC98 in Anguilla!: <http://www.fc98.ai/>