Logical fallacy

Well just because Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur. Here are the Latin translations of some of the logical Fallacies:

1. Appeal to force: Argumentum ad Baculum
2. Appeal to the man (an attack on the person's character): Argumentum ad Hominem Abusive
3. Appeal to the man (an attack on the person's circumstances): Argumentum ad Hominem Circumstantial
4. Appeal to ignorance: Argumentum ad Ignorantiam
5. Appeal to the crowd: Argumentum ad Populum
6. Appeal to pity: Argumentum ad Misericordiam
7. Appeal to authority: Argumentum ad Verecundiam
8. Begging of the question: Petitio Principii

For those who don't quite understand all the technical terms in the definitions of some of the logical fallacies, here's an explanation of some of them in possibly easier-to-understand terms.

• All "loose generalizations" are false.
  
• That "hasty generalization" is false, so all must be false.
  
• "Circular reasoning" doesn't work because it is "circular reasoning".
  
• My dad died last time I used a "single cause-effect", so don't use them.
  
• If you use "slippery slope" someone will get angry at you and they will make you lose your job, which makes your girlfriend break up with you and lose your car and house, which makes you kill yourself.
  
• I don't use "non sequiturs" because roses are red.
  
• "Either/Ors": love 'em or hate 'em.
  
• I don't use "false authority" because a movie star on T.V. told me not to.
  
• Don't vote for Ross Perot, he uses "ad hominems"!
  
• Everyone else uses "bandwagon thinking", why don't you?
  
• If you use "appeal to emotion", many children in East Africa will die.
  
• Am I "ignoring the question"? All I know is that my mother didn't love me when I was younger and I could never make my father proud of me.
  
• Don't use "trivial objections", the words "trivial objections" have seventeen letters in them.

The unfortunate thing is, even if people read this, they will likely fall for a logical fallacy, so keep your eyes and ears ready.

Fallacies of Distraction

False Dilemma: two choices are given when in fact there are three or more options.
From Ignorance: because something is not known to be true, it is assumed to be false
Slippery Slope: a series of increasingly unacceptable consequences is drawn
Complex Question: two unrelated points are conjoined as a single proposition

Appeals to Motives in Place of Support

Appeal to Force: the reader is persuaded to agree by force
Appeal to Pity: the reader is persuaded to agree by sympathy
Consequences: the reader is warned of unacceptable consequences
Prejudicial Language: value or moral goodness is attached to believing the author
Popularity: a proposition is argued to be true because it is widely held to be true

Changing the Subject

Attacking the Person:
1.the person's character is attacked
2.the person's circumstances are noted
3.the person does not practise what is preached

Appeal to Authority:
1.the authority is not an expert in the field
2.experts in the field disagree
3.the authority was joking, drunk, or in some other way not being serious
Anonymous Authority: the authority in question is not named
Style Over Substance: the manner in which an argument (or arguer) is presented is felt to affect the truth of the conclusion

Inductive Fallacies

Hasty Generalization: the sample is too small to support an inductive generalization about a population
Unrepresentative Sample: the sample is unrepresentative of the sample as a whole
False Analogy: the two objects or events being compared are relevantly dissimilar
Slothful Induction: the conclusion of a strong inductive argument is denied despite the evidence to the contrary
Fallacy of Exclusion: evidence which would change the outcome of an inductive argument is excluded from consideration

Fallacies Involving Statistical Syllogisms

Accident: a generalization is applied when circumstances suggest that there should be an exception
Converse Accident: an exception is applied in circumstances where a generalization should apply

Causal Fallacies

Post Hoc: because one thing follows another, it is held to cause the other
Joint effect: one thing is held to cause another when in fact they are both the joint effects of an underlying cause
Insignificant: one thing is held to cause another, and it does, but it is insignificant compared to other causes of the effect
Wrong Direction: the direction between cause and effect is reversed
Complex Cause: the cause identified is only a part of the entire cause of the effect

Missing the Point

Begging the Question: the truth of the conclusion is assumed by the premises
Irrelevant Conclusion: an argument in defense of one conclusion instead proves a different conclusion
Straw Man: the author attacks an argument different from (and weaker than) the opposition's best argument

Fallacies of Ambiguity

Equivocation: the same term is used with two different meanings
Amphiboly: the structure of a sentence allows two different interpretations
Accent: the emphasis on a word or phrase suggests a meaning contrary to what the sentence actually says

Category Errors

Composition: because the attributes of the parts of a whole have a certain property, it is argued that the whole has that property
Division: because the whole has a certain property, it is argued that the parts have that property

Non Sequitur

Affirming the Consequent: any argument of the form: If A then B, B, therefore A
Denying the Antecedent: any argument of the form: If A then B, Not A, thus Not B
Inconsistency: asserting that contrary or contradictory statements are both true

Syllogistic Errors

Fallacy of Four Terms: a syllogism has four terms
Undistributed Middle: two separate categories are said to be connected because they share a common property
Illicit Major: the predicate of the conclusion talks about all of something, but the premises only mention some cases of the term in the predicate
Illicit Minor: the subject of the conclusion talks about all of something, but the premises only mention some cases of the term in the subject
Fallacy of Exclusive Premises: a syllogism has two negative premises
Fallacy of Drawing an Affirmative Conclusion From a Negative Premise: as the name implies
Existential Fallacy: a particular conclusion is drawn from universal premises

Fallacies of Explanation

Subverted Support: (The phenomenon being explained doesn't exist)
Non-support: (Evidence for the phenomenon being explained is biased)
Untestability: (The theory which explains cannot be tested)
Limited Scope: (The theory which explains can only explain one thing)
Limited Depth: (The theory which explains does not appeal to underlying causes)

Fallacies of Definition

Too Broad: (The definition includes items which should not be included)
Too Narrow: (The definition does not include all the items which

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Editor's Note: This information is from www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/toc.php, with permission for reprint given at http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/copyrite.php

The reason there are so many different fallacies is because there have been so many people stupid enough to make them, among them well-respected philosophers.

Descartes even has one named after him, the Cartesian Circle, basically a circular argument or 'begging the question'. He did this in reworking St Anselm's Ontological Argument for the Existence of God which runs as follows:

(1) God is a being better than which cannot be conceived
(2) What's better, a God that exists or one that doesn't? One that does of course, so
(Conclusion) God Must Exist.

Perhaps the same argument can be applied to prove the existence of the Perfect Pizza?

Aristotle on the other hand defines moral worth or goodness as fulfilling ones role as a rational human. So why is it good to fulfil ones role as a rational human? Because fulfilling ones role as a rational human is good.

There are many other good fallacies. The Man in the Mask fallacy for example (another one old Des is guilty of). "I know what my father looks like, I do not know what the man in the mask looks like, therefore my father is not the man in the mask". The Appeal to Force is funny ("agree with me or I'll hit you") and apparently counts as a logical fallacy. Tell them that next time you get mugged.

A logical fallacy, as the term is usually understood, is an inadequate argument presented in support of a position, usually in the implied context of a debate. The argument is inadequate precisely because it does not support the position, for whatever reason. Why such a failure is called "logical" is not entirely clear: presumably because the discipline of logic had its roots in such debates, in trying to codify the cases when a particular conclusion was valid or invalid given certain premises.

The history of logical fallacies is a long one, stretching back to the Greco-Roman civilization. We might ask why they have received so much attention over the years, with lists being carefully drawn up, promulgated and pored over. Nowadays, the history, poetry, and drama of ancient times are quite unpopular, yet the ancient fallacies are still eagerly discussed. In Ancient Greece and particularly Rome, rhetoric, the art of making convincing speeches, was valued highly and studied intensively. As part of one's training, one would of course learn to identify and avoid (or employ in the most effective way?) all the classic fallacies. But clearly the study of fallacies feeds human needs much more durable than the outdated art of formal rhetoric.

These needs are easily identified as the Path of Least Resistance -- the human preference for a quick and decisive, though shallow, victory, over a deeper but knottier consideration of the issues -- and, above all, the joyous, self-affirming experience of finding and exposing someone else's mistake. (This really needs a long German word to describe it, like Schadenfreude.) It's much easier to identify a logical fallacy than to seriously engage with ideas. And, for every fallacy spotted, one gets the pleasure of patting one's own back for being so much more intelligent and objective than the other fellow.

With these psychological incentives, no wonder that sniping at logical fallacies remains a popular tactic. But like other blood sports, it runs the risk of becoming the unspeakable in pursuit of the undefensible. A logical fallacy, ineffective though it may be, is at least an attempt to contribute to one side of a debate. Pointing out your opponent's logical fallacies in detail is one more step away from saying something relevant to the discussion. Although I have not experienced it first-hand, I am reliably informed that USEnet provides good examples of this descent from meaningful debate into quibbling. (Of course, if you like quibbling, that's different.)

So, what to do if your opponent does happen to use a logical fallacy? The only honourable course of action is to resist the temptation to exult or crow, but reply with a valid counter-argument which exposes by its own strength the weakness of the fallacy.

Not this:
A -- Plato says that goat's milk yoghurt is better than cow's milk yoghurt. But Plato is a knock-kneed, grimy old fool, who has a reason to prefer goats which I can't explain in front of the children, if you catch my drift. Cow's milk yoghurt for ever!
B -- Aha, aha, that was an obvious argumentum ad hominem combined with a vile innuendo. Your fallacies are exposed for all to see. You lose, sucker!

But this:
A -- (Same thing)
B -- Plato may be all of those things, but how can that alter the fact that goat's milk yoghurt is creamier, less acidic and contains a larger concentration of cancer-preventing antioxidants?¹

Above all, do not commit the fallacy of imagining or claiming that you are right and your opponent is wrong because he or she has used a fallacy. Your ability to spot fallacies makes you a clever bastard, but does not make you right.

Being a clever bastard, and in the spirit of Godel's Theorem, I would like to call this argumentum ad fallaciem, the attempt to substitute fallacy-spotting for substantive argument. (This is clearly a subdivision of the fallacy of Style over Substance, in which one tries to argue that one's opponent is wrong because of the way in which he or she is arguing.) Any time an argument gets clogged up with "straw men", just mutter "argumentum ad fallaciem" and move on quickly.

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1. I do not know whether either type of yoghurt contains cancer-preventing antioxidants. However, goat's milk yoghurt is delicious, and anyone who disagrees with that can go to Hades.