![]() Fallacies of inappropriate presumption: cases where we have an assumption or a question presupposing something that is not reasonable to accept in the relevant conversational context.įallacies of inconsistency are cases where something inconsistent, self-contradictory or self-defeating is presented.Fallacies of insufficiency: cases where the evidence supporting a conclusion is insufficient or weak.Fallacies of relevance: cases where irrelevant reasons are being invoked or relevant reasons being ignored.Fallacies of inconsistency: cases where something inconsistent or self-defeating has been proposed or accepted.Broadly speaking, we might divide fallacies into four kinds: There are different ways of classifying fallacies. Being familiar with typical fallacies can help us avoid them and help explain other people’s mistakes. The study of fallacies is an application of the principles of critical thinking. This is why we would like to define fallacies more broadly as violations of the principles of critical thinking, whether or not the mistakes take the form of an argument. In both of these situations though, the person is making a mistake of reasoning since they are doing something that goes against one or more principles of correct reasoning. Similarly, putting forward a question with an inappropriate presupposition might also be regarded as a fallacy, but a question is also not an argument. ![]() For example, making a contradictory claim seems to be a case of fallacy, but a single claim is not an argument. In some discussions, a fallacy is taken to be an undesirable kind of argument or inference. In our view, this definition of fallacy is rather narrow, since we might want to count certain mistakes of reasoning as fallacious even though they are not presented as arguments. A belief in “round squares” is a mistake of reasoning and contains a fallacy because, if my reasoning were good, I would not believe something that is logically inconsistent with reality. On the other hand, if I believe that there are round squares I believe something that is contradictory. If I counted twenty people in the room when there were in fact twenty-one, then I made a factual mistake. ![]() Fallacies are mistakes of reasoning, as opposed to making mistakes that are of a factual nature. ![]()
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