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No True Scotsman
No true Scotsman or appeal to purity is an informal fallacy in which one modifies a prior claim in response to a counterexample by asserting the counterexample is excluded by definition. Rather than admitting error or providing evidence to disprove the counterexample, the original claim is changed by using a non-substantive modifier such as "true", "pure", "genuine", "authentic", "real", or other similar terms. Philosopher Bradley Dowden explains the fallacy as an " ad hoc rescue" of a refuted generalization attempt. The following is a simplified rendition of the fallacy: Person A: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." Person B: "But my uncle Angus is a Scotsman and he puts sugar on his porridge." Person A: "But no Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." Occurrence The "no true Scotsman" fallacy is committed when the arguer satisfies the following conditions: * not publicly retreating from the initial, falsified ''a posteriori'' assertion * offering a modified assertion t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Informal Fallacy
Informal fallacies are a type of incorrect argument in natural language. The source of the error is not just due to the ''form'' of the argument, as is the case for formal fallacies, but can also be due to their ''content'' and ''context''. Fallacies, despite being incorrect, usually ''appear'' to be correct and thereby can seduce people into accepting and using them. These misleading appearances are often connected to various aspects of natural language, such as ambiguous or vague expressions, or the assumption of implicit premises instead of making them explicit. Traditionally, a great number of informal fallacies have been identified, including the fallacy of equivocation, the fallacy of amphiboly, the Fallacy of composition, fallacies of composition and Fallacy of division, division, the false dilemma, the fallacy of begging the question, the ad hominem fallacy and the appeal to ignorance. There is no general agreement as to how the various fallacies are to be grouped into cate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychology, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguistics, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind. Pinker is the Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. He specializes in visual cognition and developmental linguistics, and his experimental topics include mental imagery, shape recognition, visual attention, regularity and irregularity in language, the neural basis of words and grammar, and childhood language development. Other experimental topics he works on are the psychology of cooperation and of communication, including emotional expression, euphemism, innuendo, and how people use "common knowledge", a term of art meaning the shared understanding in which two or more people know something, know that the other one knows, know the other one knows that they know, and so on. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whataboutism
Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "but what about X?") is a pejorative for the strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of a defense against the original accusation. From a logical and argumentative point of view, whataboutism is considered a variant of the tu-quoque pattern (Latin 'you too', term for a counter-accusation), which is a subtype of the ad-hominem argument. The communication intent is often to distract from the content of a topic ( red herring). The goal may also be to question the justification for criticism and the legitimacy, integrity, and fairness of the critic, which can take on the character of discrediting the criticism, which may or may not be justified. Common accusations include double standards, and hypocrisy, but it can also be used to relativize criticism of one's own viewpoints or behaviors. (A: "Long-term unemployment often means poverty in Germany." B: "And what about the starving in Africa and Asia?"). Relat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Special Pleading
Special pleading is an informal fallacy wherein a person claims an exception to a general or universal principle, but the exception is unjustified. It applies a double standard. In the classic distinction among material fallacies, cognitive fallacies, and formal fallacies, special pleading most likely falls within the category of cognitive fallacy, because it would seem to relate to " lip service", rationalization, and diversion (abandonment of discussion). Special pleading also often resembles the "appeal to" logical fallacies. In medieval philosophy, it was not presumed that wherever a distinction is claimed, a relevant basis for the distinction should exist and be substantiated. Special pleading subverts a presumption of existential import. Examples A difficult case is when a possible criticism is made relatively immune to investigation. This immunity may take the forms of: * Creation of an '' ad-hoc'' exception to prevent the rule from backfiring against the claim: ** ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reification (fallacy)
Reification (also known as concretism, hypostatization, or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness) is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical wikt:construct, construct) is treated as if it were a concrete real event or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating something that is not concrete, such as an idea, as a concrete thing. A common case of reification is the confusion of a model with reality: "the map is not the territory". Reification is part of normal usage of natural language, as well as of literature, where a reified abstraction is intended as a figure of speech, and actually understood as such. But the use of reification in logical reasoning or rhetoric is misleading and usually regarded as a fallacy. A potential consequence of reification is exemplified by Goodhart's law, where changes in the measurement of a phenomenon are mistaken for changes to the phenomenon itself. Etymology The term "reification" originate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persuasive Definition
A persuasive definition is a form of stipulative definition which purports to describe the true or commonly accepted meaning of a term, while in reality stipulating an uncommon or altered use, usually to support an argument for some view, or to create or alter rights, duties or crimes. The terms thus defined will often involve emotionally charged but imprecise notions, such as "freedom", "terrorism", "antisemitism, "democracy", etc. In argumentation the use of a persuasive definition is sometimes called definist fallacy. (The latter sometimes more broadly refers to a fallacy of a definition based on improper identification of two distinct properties.) Examples of persuasive definitions (definist fallacies) include: * Democrat – "a leftist who desires to overtax the corporations and abolish freedom in the economic sphere". * Atheist – "someone who doesn't yet realize that God exists." Persuasive definitions commonly appear in controversial topics such as polit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moving The Goalposts
Moving the goalposts (or shifting the goalposts) is a metaphor, derived from goal-based sports such as football and hockey, that means to change the rule or criterion ("goal") of a process or competition while it is still in progress, in such a way that the new goal offers one side an advantage or disadvantage. Etymology This phrase is British in origin and derives from sports that use goalposts. The figurative use alludes to the perceived unfairness in changing the goal one is trying to achieve after the process one is engaged in (such as a game of football) has already started. Logical fallacy Moving the goalposts is an informal fallacy in which evidence presented in response to a specific claim is dismissed and some other (often greater) evidence is demanded. That is, after an attempt has been made to score a goal, the goalposts are moved to exclude the attempt. The problem with changing the rules of the game is that the meaning of the result is changed, too. Use Some inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Fallacies
A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning in the construction of an argument. All forms of human communication can contain fallacies. Because of their variety, fallacies are challenging to classify. They can be classified by their structure (formal fallacies) or content (informal fallacies). Informal fallacies, the larger group, may then be subdivided into categories such as improper presumption, faulty generalization, error in assigning causation, and relevance, among others. The use of fallacies is common when the speaker's goal of achieving common agreement is more important to them than utilizing sound reasoning. When fallacies are used, the premise should be recognized as not well-grounded, the conclusion as unproven (but not necessarily false), and the argument as unsound. Formal fallacies A formal fallacy is an error in the argument's form. All formal fallacies are types of . * Appeal to probability – taking something for granted because it wo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Equivocation
In logic, equivocation ("calling two different things by the same name") is an informal fallacy resulting from the use of a particular word or expression in multiple senses within an argument. It is a type of ambiguity that stems from a phrase having two or more distinct meanings, not from the grammar or structure of the sentence. Fallacy of four terms Equivocation in a syllogism (a chain of reasoning) produces a fallacy of four terms (). Below is an example: : Since only man umanis rational. : And no woman is a man ale : Therefore, no woman is rational. The first instance of "man" implies the entire human species, while the second implies just those who are male. Motte-and-bailey fallacy Equivocation can also be used to conflate two positions which share similarities, one modest and easy to defend and one much more controversial. The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position. See ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epistemic Commitment
Epistemic commitment is an obligation, which may be withdrawn only under appropriate circumstances, to uphold the factual truth of a given proposition, and to provide reasons for one's belief in that proposition. Epistemic means 'of, or relating to knowledge'. An epistemic commitment of some kind, on the part of the participants, underlies most arguments. For instance, each participant in an argument would have a position that they are expressing, and an underlying epistemic commitment fundamental to their reasoning. Example 1 Joe states that whales are gentle creatures, and as such, should never be killed. Susan replies that killer whales are not 'gentle', in fact, they eat seal pups. Joe, instead of revising his earlier stated opinion of whales based on new information from Susan, asserts that killer whales must not actually be whales, because a 'true whale eats plankton.' Joe has now redefined 'whale' to suit his argument. If Susan shows Joe a book which asserts that killer w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Begging The Question
In classical rhetoric and logic, begging the question or assuming the conclusion (Latin: ) is an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion. Historically, begging the question refers to a fault in a dialectical argument in which the speaker assumes some premise that has not been demonstrated to be true. In modern usage, it has come to refer to an argument in which the premises assume the conclusion without supporting it. This makes it an example of circular reasoning.Herrick (2000) 248. Some examples are: *“Wool sweaters are better than nylon jackets as fall attire because wool sweaters have higher wool content". ** The claim in this quote is that wool sweaters are better than nylon jackets as fall attire. However, the justification of this claim begs the question because it ''presupposes'' that wool sweaters are better than nylon jackets: in other words, wool sweaters are better than nylon jackets because wool is better than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ad Hoc Hypothesis
In science and philosophy, an ''ad hoc'' hypothesis is a hypothesis added to a theory in order to save it from being falsified. For example, a person that wants to believe in leprechauns can avoid ever being proven wrong by using ''ad hoc'' hypotheses (e.g., by adding "they are invisible", then "their motives are complex", and so on).Stanovich, Keith E. (2007). How to Think Straight About Psychology. Boston: Pearson Education. Pages 19-33 Often, ''ad hoc'' hypothesizing is employed to compensate for anomalies not anticipated by the theory in its unmodified form. In the scientific community Scientists are often skeptical of theories that rely on frequent, unsupported adjustments to sustain them. This is because, if a theorist so chooses, there is no limit to the number of ''ad hoc'' hypotheses that they could add. Thus the theory becomes more and more complex, but is never falsified. This is often at a cost to the theory's predictive power, however. ''Ad hoc'' hypotheses are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
