Ad Fontem
What is ad hominem abusive?
Arguments that distract by attempting to shame the listener into agreement by citing an illegitimate authority.
What is appeal to illegitimate authority/argumentum ad verecundiam?
What is irrelevant goals or functions?
Arguments based on the assumption that individual parts of a collective whole will necessarily have all of the characteristics of the collective whole.
What is fallacy of division?
An argument that uses numbers in a way that is too precise to be justified by the situation.
What is fake precision?
Arguments that assume a rival's recommendations should be discounted because the rival does not always follow it himself.
What is tu quoque?
Arguments that distract by making the audience afraid of the consequences of disagreeing with the speaker; they seek to arouse an unrealistic or unrelated fear of harm.
What is appeal to fear/argumentum ad baculum?
A "red herring" is a general name for which strategy.
An attempt to frame the debate in such a way that only two options are possible, when, in fact, other possibilities exist.
What is bifurcation/false dilemma?
An argument by analogy that fails, largely because the things being compared aren't similar enough to warrant the comparison.
What is false analogy?
"Why should we listen to Sarah’s ideas for the student council? She wears terrible clothes and has no fashion sense" is an example of this fallacy.
What is ad hominem abusive?
Arguments that distract by making the audience want to be part of the crowd or one of the "common people" to make up for a lack of solid evidence and sound reason.
What is mob appeal/argumentum ad populum?
Arguments that attempt to disprove an opponent's position by presenting it in an unfair, innaccurate light.
What is straw man fallacy?
An argument that assumes that just because something is a certain way, it out-to be that way.
What is the is-ought fallacy?
What is false cause?
Arguments that state that an idea should be discounted simply because of its source or origin.
What is genetic fallacy?
Arguments that distract by making the audience feel sorry for the speaker or someone on behalf of whom the speaker is arguing.
What is appeal to pity/argumentum ad misericordiam?
Arguments that claim that since a proposition cannot be disproven, it must therefore be true or likely.
What is appeal to ignorance?
What is begging the question?
What is sweeping generalization?
Arguments that try to discredit an opponent because of his background, affiliations, or self-interest in the matter at hand.
What is ad hominem circumstantial?
Arguments that distract by making a person want to feel "special."
What is snob appeal?
Arguments that distract by making a case for the wrong point.
What is irrelevant thesis?
An argument based on the assumption that the correct answer is always a middle ground between extremes.
What is the fallacy of moderation?
An argument that results in making a generalization about a class of things on the basis of too few examples.
What is hasty generalization?