Phil 201 - List of informal logical fallacies of relevance from Dr. Jones\' phil 201-008 PDF

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List of informal logical fallacies of relevance from Dr. Jones' phil 201-008 ...

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Informal Logical Fallacies of Relevance Phil 201-008 Dr. Jones 2019-2020 Fallacies of “Relevance” (resulting from inattention to some aspect of the argument) 1. Appeal to Force: solving an argument by appeaing to force rather than logic -fallacy because it focuses on winning rather than the truth -Machiavelli’s “might makes right” – the bully on the playground

2. Argumentum Ad hominem (appeal to the man): attacks the person rather than the argument - Abusive: attacks the opponent in a way that they look bad - Circumstantial: argues that a position is false by pointing out irrelevant details about its proponent - Circumstantial acts almost as a red herring to take attention away form the argument 3. Argument From Silence: argues this is true because it cannot be proven false - Just because you cannot personally prove something false does not mean it’s true. Someone else could always prove it false. - “you can’t prove that there isn’t really a waffle house on the dark side of the moon so it must actually be there!” 4. Appeal to The Crowd: convincing by a populist and often emotional appeal -starting with something that the crowd agrees with before controversy

5. Appeal to Pity: tries to convince by arousing sympathy in the listener 6. Appeal to Authority: citing the support of an unqualified expert -“well my dad says……” 7. Begging The Question: assuming in your answer the very thing the question asks you to prove -how do you know God exists? -because the Bible told me so! -AKA circular reasoning 8. False Cause (post hoc, ergo protor hoc): mistakenly attributing causality to something -“don’t wash your car, it’ll rain” 9. Complex Question: asking a question that presumes an answer to another, unexpressed question -“are you still beating your husband?” 10. False Dilemma: posing a question so that your options are fewer than are really possible -“are you a Democrat or a Republican?” -well you could be neither 11. Genetic Fallacy: argues that a position is false because of some detail about its origin (its genesis) -Example: Christian rock can’t be good because the origins of rock music are bad -Christians cannot do yoga because it started as a Hindu practice 12. Straw Man: giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent.

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13. Red Herring: something that misleads or distracts from the important issue of the argument. Can be intentional or not. 14. Self-Referential Incoherence: the statement does not live up to its own standard - Example: “only scientific statements are true” is not itself a scientific statement 15. Non-Sequitor: the conclusion does not logically flow from the evidence/argument - Example: this is my body, and I have the right to do what I want with it, therefore I have the right to an abortion

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