Fallacy Detective vocabulary
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Created by:
pro3128 on October 22, 2009
Subjects:
Classes:
Ms. Webb's English 10, TEAM Englewood AP Lang 2012-2013
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29 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 fallacy | an error in logic; a place where someone has made a mistake in his thinking |
| opposing viewpoints | when we are forming an opinion on an issue, it is often a good idea to collect other people's viewpoints on the issue; the more viewpoints, the better we understand the whole picture |
| red herring | the introduction of an irrelevant point into an argument |
| ad hominem | attacking an opponent's character, or his motives for believing something, instead of disproving his argument |
| genetic fallacy | condemning an argument because of where it began, how it began, or who began it |
| tu quoque | dismissing someone's viewpoint on an issue because he himself is inconsistent in that very thing |
| faulty appeal to authority | an appeal to someone who has no special knowledge in the area being discussed; used to overawe us and make us reluctant to challenge that authority's viewpoint |
| appeal to the people | when we claim that our viewpoint is correct because many other people agree with it |
| straw man | changing or exaggerating an opponent's position or argument to make it easier to refute |
| assumption | something taken for granted, or accepted as true without proof |
| circular reasoning | an argument which says "P is true because Q is true, and Q is true because P is true" |
| equivocation | changing the meaning of a word in the middle of an argument |
| loaded question | when someone asks two questions, but one is hidden behind the other |
| part-to-whole | when someone tries to say that what is true of part of something must also be true of the whole thing together |
| whole-to-part | when someone tries to say that what is true of something as a whole must also be true of each of its parts |
| either-or | when someone asserts that we must choose between two things, when in fact we have more than two alternatives |
| generalization | to make broad comments about a group of people or kinds of things |
| hasty generalization | generalizing about a class based upon a small or poor sample |
| analogy | comparing two items with each other when the items are the same in one or more respects |
| weak analogy | when the differences in the items being compared are major and the similarities minor |
| post hoc ergo propter hoc | concluding that since A happened before B, then A must have caused B |
| post hoc ergo propter hoc in statistics | A and B don't have to follow each other; if they are commonly seen together, then one must have caused the other |
| proof by lack of evidence | claiming something is true simply because nobody has yet given any evidence to the contrary |
| manipulative propaganda | when someone plays with our emotions in a way designed to make us agree with them without thinking through the matter carefully |
| appeal to fear | when someone makes you fear the consequences of not doing what he wants |
| appeal to pity | when someone tries to make us do something only because we pity him, or we pity something associated with him |
| bandwagon | the technique invites us to jump on the bandwagon and do what everybody else is doing. this technique pressures us to do something just because many other people like us are doing it |
| exigency | when nothing more than a time limit is given as a reason for you to do what someone wants |
| repetition | repeating a message loudly and very often in the hope that it will soon be believed |
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