Fallacies
Fallacies, which are errors in reasoning that undermine the validity of an argument, are often categorized into two main types: formal fallacies and informal fallacies.
Formal Fallacies: These involve errors in the logical structure of an argument. Formal fallacies occur when there is a mistake in the form or structure of the argument, making it invalid regardless of the content of the premises. For example, the fallacy of affirming the consequent is a formal fallacy where an argument mistakenly infers the inverse of a conditional statement. Such errors are typically identifiable through the use of formal logic and are often taught using symbolic notation to illustrate the invalidity of the argument structure.
Informal Fallacies: These pertain to errors related to the content, relevance, or context of an argument rather than its structure. Informal fallacies are more nuanced as they involve issues such as misused language, irrelevant information, or faulty assumptions that are not explicitly stated. Common examples include the ad hominem fallacy, where an argument attacks a person rather than addressing the issue at hand, and the straw man fallacy, where an argument misrepresents an opponent's position to make it easier to attack.
Categorization and Analysis:
Informal fallacies are often divided into categories based on the nature of the error, such as fallacies of relevance, ambiguity, presumption, and more. Each category encompasses specific fallacies that share similar characteristics. For instance, fallacies of relevance include arguments that rely on irrelevant premises to support their conclusions, while fallacies of ambiguity involve misleading use of language.
1. Fallacies of Relevance
These fallacies occur when the premises are not logically relevant to the conclusion.
Ad Hominem: Attacking the person instead of addressing the argument.
Anecdotal Evidence: Using personal stories instead of reliable evidence.
Appeal to Authority: Relying on an authority figure’s opinion instead of substantive evidence.
Appeal to Consequences: Arguing a belief is true or false based on desirability of its outcomes.
Appeal to Desperation: Persuading others by exploiting a desperate situation.
Appeal to Emotion: Manipulating emotions to win an argument.
Appeal to Fear: Using fear to influence beliefs or actions.
Appeal to Force: Using threats to persuade acceptance of a conclusion.
Appeal to Novelty: Asserting something is better because it is new or modern.
Appeal to Pity: Using pity or sympathy to persuade acceptance of a conclusion.
Appeal to Poverty: Claiming a proposition is true because the advocate is poor or disadvantaged.
Appeal to Tradition: Arguing something is correct because it is traditional.
Appeal to Wealth: Asserting that wealth equates to truth or virtue.
Argument from Repetition: Repeating a statement to make it appear true.
Bandwagon Fallacy: Assuming something is true because many people believe it.
Burden of Proof: Insisting others must prove their case instead of providing evidence for one’s own.
Courtier's Reply: Responding with flattery or irrelevant compliments instead of addressing the issue.
Decoy Effect: Introducing a third option to influence choice between two other options.
Distinction Without a Difference: Making a distinction between two things that are essentially the same.
Divine Fallacy: Claiming something is true because a deity or religious authority says so.
Furtive Fallacy: Hiding bias within an argument to appear objective.
Genetic Fallacy: Judging something based on its origin rather than its current context.
Guilt by Association: Attacking someone’s beliefs based on their association with an undesirable group or person.
If-by-Whiskey: Arguing based on hypothetical scenarios irrelevant to the conclusion.
Inflation of Conflict: Exaggerating disagreement to undermine the subject.
Innuendo: Implying something negative without stating it directly.
Irrelevant Conclusion: Presenting a conclusion that doesn’t logically follow from the premises.
Kettle Logic: Using multiple inconsistent arguments to defend a position.
Moral High Ground Fallacy: Assuming moral superiority to dismiss others’ arguments.
Moving the Goalposts: Changing proof requirements after they have been met.
No True Scotsman: Dismissing counterexamples by changing the definition to exclude them.
Paltering: Using truthful statements to mislead without lying outright.
Poisoning the Well: Attacking the source before they present their argument.
Proving Too Much: Arguing so thoroughly that the conclusion exceeds logical support.
Quoting Out of Context: Misrepresenting meaning by using excerpts without surrounding context.
Reactive Devaluation: Devaluing a proposal because it originates from an opponent.
Red Herring: Introducing irrelevant information to divert attention from the main issue.
Reductio ad Absurdum (Fallacious Use): Extending an argument to its extreme to demonstrate its folly.
Relative Privation: Arguing that a problem is not important because others are worse off.
Reverse Appeal to Consequences: Arguing that because the consequences of a belief are undesirable, the belief itself must be false.
Rhyme as Reason Effect: Believing something is true because it rhymes or has catchy phrasing.
Single Cause: Attributing an event to a single cause when multiple factors are involved.
Slippery Slope: Asserting that a small first step will lead to a chain of related events.
Special Pleading: Creating unjustified exceptions to rules.
Strawman: Misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier to attack.
Style Over Substance: Valuing the presentation of an argument over its actual content.
Subjectivist Fallacy: Assuming personal feelings are the ultimate basis for truth or knowledge.
Sunk Costs: Continuing an endeavor due to previously invested resources despite new evidence against it.
Suppressed Correlate: Highlighting evidence that supports a conclusion while ignoring contradictory data.
The Beard: Arguing that small changes cannot accumulate to significant differences.
Thought Terminating Cliché: Using a commonly accepted phrase to end an argument without addressing the issue.
Tokenism: Making a superficial effort to include underrepresented groups without meaningful participation.
Tone Policing: Criticizing the emotional delivery of an argument rather than its content.
Tu Quoque: Dismissing an argument by accusing the opponent of hypocrisy.
2. Fallacies of Ambiguity
These fallacies arise from unclear or ambiguous language.
Accentuation: Emphasizing certain words to mislead or distort the meaning of a statement.
Equivocation: Using a word with multiple meanings ambiguously within an argument.
Definist Fallacy: Defining terms in a biased way to support a particular argument.
Reification: Treating abstract concepts as if they were real, tangible things.
Double Counting: Counting the same factor multiple times in support of an argument.
Scope Insensitivity: Failing to recognize the proportional change in addressing an issue, regardless of its size or impact.
Quoting Out of Context: (Also listed under Relevance) Misrepresenting meaning by using excerpts without surrounding context.
Rhyme as Reason Effect: (Also listed under Relevance) Believing something is true because it rhymes or has catchy phrasing.
3. Fallacies of Presumption
These fallacies involve unwarranted assumptions that the conclusion is true without proper evidence.
Accident: Applying a general rule to a specific case where it is not appropriate.
Affirming the Consequent: Assuming that if the consequent of an implication is true, then the antecedent must also be true.
Appeal to Ignorance: Claiming something is true because it has not been proven false, or vice versa.
Appeal to Nature: Arguing that something is good or right because it is natural, or bad because it is unnatural.
Appeal to Probability: Assuming that because something is probable, it is therefore definitely true.
Circular Reasoning: Using the conclusion as a premise within the argument.
Composition Fallacy: Assuming that what is true for the parts is true for the whole.
Division Fallacy: Assuming that what is true of the whole must be true of its parts.
Denying the Antecedent: Incorrectly assuming that if "If A, then B" is true, then "If not A, then not B" must also be true.
Existential Fallacy: Assuming that something exists based on flawed premises or reasoning.
False Analogy: Drawing a comparison between two things that aren’t sufficiently alike in relevant aspects.
False Cause: Assuming causation based solely on the sequence of events.
False Dichotomy: Presenting only two options when more exist.
False Equivalence: Equating two things based on flawed or false reasoning.
False Precision: Using numbers or data in a misleadingly precise way to support an argument.
Four Terms Fallacy: Using a syllogism with four terms instead of the required three.
Hasty Generalization: Drawing a broad conclusion from a small or unrepresentative sample.
Illicit Major: Using a major premise that is not universally valid in a syllogism.
Illicit Minor: Using a minor premise that improperly restricts the major premise.
Loaded Question: Asking a question that contains a controversial assumption.
Loki's Wager: Insisting that for any rule to apply, it must hold in all cases, leading to an endless argument.
Lump of Labour Fallacy: Believing that there is a fixed amount of resources, implying one’s gain is another’s loss.
Moralistic Fallacy: Assuming that because something ought to be a certain way, it is that way.
Necessity: Assuming that because something is necessary, it suffices to prove a point without further evidence.
Negative Premises: Using premises that deny the existence or occurrence of something to support a conclusion.
Nirvana Fallacy: Rejecting a solution because it is not perfect.
No True Scotsman: Dismissing counterexamples by changing the definition to exclude them.
Omniscience Fallacy: Assuming complete knowledge about all aspects of a situation.
Perfectionist Fallacy: Rejecting solutions because they are not perfect.
Planck's Principle: Assuming that if something cannot currently be explained, it is impossible or does not exist.
The Inverse: Mistakenly rejecting an argument by denying its contrapositive.
Undistributed Middle: A syllogism error where the middle term is not distributed in either premise.
4. Statistical and Reasoning Fallacies
These fallacies involve errors in statistical reasoning, probability, or inductive reasoning.
Base Rate Fallacy: Ignoring statistical base rates in favor of individuating information.
Berkson's Paradox: A statistical paradox where two independent events become dependent when conditioned on a third.
Conjunction Fallacy: Assuming that specific conditions are more probable than general ones.
Gambler's Fallacy: Believing that past independent events affect future independent events.
Hot Hand Fallacy: Believing that a person has a higher probability of success based on previous successes in a random sequence.
Prosecutor's Fallacy: Misunderstanding or misapplying statistical evidence, often in legal contexts.
Pseudocertainty Effect: Overvaluing certain outcomes over probable ones.
Regression Fallacy: Attributing outcomes to causes that ignore natural variability or regression to the mean.
Representativeness Heuristic: Judging the probability of an event based on how much it resembles existing stereotypes or prototypes.
Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy: Focusing on similarities in data while ignoring differences to support a conclusion.
5. Miscellaneous Fallacies
Fallacies that don’t neatly fit into the above categories but are still important to recognize.
Crucial Experiment: Arguing that because a crucial experiment hasn’t been done, a proposition is false.
Decoy Effect: Introducing a third option to influence the choice between two other options.
Homunculus Fallacy: Explaining a complex process by introducing a smaller human-like entity without justification.
Incomplete Comparison: Making a comparison that leaves out critical information.
Inconsistent Comparison: Comparing two things that are not comparable in relevant aspects.
Middle Ground: Assuming that the middle position between two extremes is always correct.
Reification: Treating an abstract concept as if it were a real, tangible thing.
Retrospective Determinism: Believing that events were predictable after they have already happened.
Slippery Slope: Asserting that a small first step will inevitably lead to a chain of related events.
Thought Terminating Cliché: Using a commonly accepted phrase to end an argument without addressing the underlying issue.
1. Information Processing Biases
Biases that affect how we process, interpret, and handle information.
Anchoring Bias: Relying too heavily on the first piece of information encountered when making decisions.
Availability Heuristic: Overestimating the importance or frequency of information that is easily recalled or recent.
Availability Cascade: A self-reinforcing process where a collective belief gains more plausibility through its increasing repetition in public discourse.
Clustering Illusion: Seeing patterns in random events, such as believing that random sequences exhibit non-random patterns.
Cognitive Fluency: Preferring information that is easier to process mentally, regardless of its truthfulness.
Confirmation Bias: Focusing on evidence that confirms existing beliefs while ignoring contradictory information.
Framing Effect: Being influenced by the way information is presented rather than just the information itself.
Google Effect (Digital Amnesia): Forgetting information that can be easily found online.
Information Bias: Seeking information even when it does not affect action, leading to information overload.
Information Overload: Being overwhelmed by the amount of information, leading to difficulty in decision-making.
Mere Exposure Effect: Developing a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them.
Misinformation Effect: Incorporating misleading information into one's memory of an event.
Recency Bias: Giving disproportionate weight to the most recent information or experiences.
Recency Illusion: Believing that a phenomenon is new or has only recently appeared when it has existed for some time.
Selective Exposure: Preferring information that reinforces existing views while avoiding contradictory information.
Selective Perception: Allowing expectations to influence how one perceives information, filtering out what doesn't conform to beliefs.
Von Restorff Effect (Isolation Effect): Remembering distinctive items better than common ones.
2. Decision-Making Biases
Biases that influence the choices and decisions we make.
Choice Blindness: Failing to notice a mismatch between one's intentions and outcomes, especially in decision-making.
Choice-supportive Bias: Remembering one's choices as better than they actually were, often overlooking their flaws.
Decoy Effect: Introducing a less attractive option to make another option appear more favorable.
Endowment Effect: Valuing something more simply because one owns it, leading to reluctance to part with possessions.
Hyperbolic Discounting: Preferring smaller, immediate rewards over larger, later rewards, leading to impulsive decisions.
IKEA Effect: Valuing things more highly because one has put effort into creating or assembling them.
Loss Aversion: Preferring to avoid losses rather than acquiring equivalent gains, making losses feel more significant than gains.
Omission Bias: Preferring an action’s omission over its commission, even if inaction leads to worse outcomes.
Outcome Bias: Judging a decision based on its outcome rather than the quality of the decision at the time it was made.
Paradox of Choice: Having too many options leads to decision paralysis and reduced satisfaction.
Prospect Theory: Valuing gains and losses differently, leading to inconsistent decision-making.
Pseudocertainty Effect: Preferring definite outcomes over probable ones, even when the probable ones offer higher expected value.
Status Quo Bias: Preferring things to stay the same rather than change, even when change may be beneficial.
Temporal Discounting: Valuing immediate rewards more highly than future rewards.
Zero-risk Bias: Preferring actions that eliminate some risk entirely over actions that reduce a greater risk by a comparable amount.
3. Social and Group Biases
Biases affecting how we interact with and perceive others in social settings.
Actor-Observer Bias: Attributing one's own actions to external factors while attributing others' actions to their character.
Authority Bias: Valuing the opinions of authority figures disproportionately, even in areas outside their expertise.
Bandwagon Effect: Adopting beliefs or behaviors because others are doing so, often ignoring one's own beliefs or evidence.
Blind Loyalty Fallacy: Defending a group or individual without critical analysis, simply out of loyalty.
False Consensus Effect: Overestimating how much others agree with one's own beliefs or behaviors.
Groupthink: Prioritizing harmony and conformity within a group over critical evaluation, leading to poor decision-making.
In-group Bias: Favoring members of one's own group over those of others, leading to partiality and discrimination.
Out-group Homogeneity Bias: Seeing members of other groups as more similar to each other than they actually are.
Social Comparison Bias: Comparing oneself to others in a way that skews self-perception.
Third-person Effect: Believing that others are more influenced by media and persuasive messages than oneself.
4. Memory and Recall Biases
Biases that affect how we remember past events and information.
Curse of Knowledge: Assuming that others have the background to understand, often leading to ineffective communication.
Duration Neglect: Ignoring the duration of an experience when evaluating its overall quality.
False Memory: Recalling events differently from how they actually occurred or recalling events that never happened.
Hindsight Bias: Believing, after an event has occurred, that one would have predicted or expected the outcome.
Humor Effect: Finding information more credible or pleasant if it is presented humorously.
Pareidolia: Perceiving familiar patterns, like faces, where none exist, often leading to false interpretations.
Well-traveled Road Effect: Assuming that widely experienced events are more predictable or inevitable.
5. Self-Perception and Attribution Biases
Biases relating to how we perceive ourselves and attribute causes to behaviors.
Dunning-Kruger Effect: Overestimating one's own abilities in areas where one lacks competence, while underestimating others' abilities.
Fundamental Attribution Error: Overemphasizing personal characteristics and underestimating situational factors when explaining others' behavior.
Illusory Superiority: Overestimating one's own qualities and abilities relative to others.
Naïve Realism: Believing that we see the world objectively and that those who disagree are uninformed or biased.
Projection Bias: Assuming that others share the same beliefs, values, or feelings as oneself.
Self-serving Bias: Attributing positive outcomes to one's own abilities and negative outcomes to external factors.
6. Emotional and Motivational Biases
Biases influenced by emotions and motivations that affect judgments and decisions.
Cognitive Dissonance: Experiencing mental discomfort when holding conflicting beliefs or when behavior contradicts beliefs, leading to rationalization.
Denial: Refusing to accept reality or fact, acting as if a painful event, thought, or feeling does not exist.
Emotion Bias: Letting emotions influence judgments and decisions beyond rational consideration.
Impact Bias: Overestimating the length or intensity of future emotional states.
Negativity Bias: Giving more weight to negative experiences or information than positive ones.
Optimism Bias: Overestimating the likelihood of positive outcomes and underestimating the likelihood of negative ones.
Ostrich Effect: Ignoring an obvious (usually negative) situation by pretending it does not exist.
Placebo Effect: Experiencing a perceived improvement in condition due to believing in the efficacy of a treatment that has no therapeutic value.
Reactance: Doing the opposite of what someone wants you to do out of a need to resist perceived attempts at manipulation.
7. Probability and Risk Assessment Biases
Biases affecting how we evaluate and perceive probabilities and risks.
Doomsday Bias: Believing that higher probability events are far worse than they actually are.
Exaggerated Expectation: Overestimating the benefits that will result from future actions.
Illusion of Control: Overestimating one’s ability to control or influence outcomes that are largely determined by chance.
Overconfidence Effect: Holding excessive confidence in one's own knowledge, judgments, or abilities.
Representativeness Heuristic: Assessing similarity and assuming like follows like, often ignoring statistical realities like base rates.
Survivorship Bias: Focusing on successful cases while ignoring failures, leading to a skewed understanding.
8. Perception and Judgment Biases
Biases that influence our perception and judgments independent of decision-making.
Anthropocentric Bias: Assuming that human perspectives are central or most significant in interpreting the world.
Belief Bias: Letting one's beliefs influence the logical strength of an argument, making invalid arguments seem valid or vice versa.
Belief Perseverance: Maintaining beliefs despite new information that contradicts them.
Forer Effect (Barnum Effect): Believing that vague, general statements are highly accurate for oneself.
Halo Effect: Allowing an overall impression of a person to influence specific judgments about them, such as overestimating their abilities.
Illusion of Transparency: Overestimating the degree to which others can discern one's internal states or intentions.
Illusory Correlation: Perceiving a relationship between variables (typically people, events, or behaviors) even when none exists.
Just-world Hypothesis: Believing that people get what they deserve, leading to rationalization of injustices.
Moral Luck: Judging the morality of an action based on outcomes outside the actor's control.
Observer Effect: Altering behavior due to the awareness of being observed.
Observer-Expectancy Effect: Allowing personal expectations to influence the outcome of an experiment or observation.
Psychologist's Fallacy: Assuming that one’s own subjective experiences are objective facts.
Stereotyping: Expecting a member of a group to have certain characteristics without actual evidence.
9. Attention and Focus Biases
Biases related to how we direct our attention and focus in various contexts.
Functional Fixedness: Limiting the use of objects beyond their traditional purposes.
Identifiable Victim Effect: Showing more empathy for a single identifiable individual rather than a large group with similar needs.
Pro-Innovation Bias: Believing that an innovation is superior without critical evaluation of its effectiveness.
Unit Bias: Assuming that a single unit of something (e.g., a serving size) is appropriate, regardless of context or need.
10. Reasoning and Logic Biases
Biases affecting our reasoning processes and logical thinking.
Semmelweis Reflex: Automatically rejecting new evidence or ideas because they contradict established beliefs.
Woozle Effect: Gaining unwarranted credibility by repeating a claim multiple times without supporting evidence.
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