Irrelevant Appeals

Irrelevant appeals attempt to sway the listener with information that, though persuasive, is irrelevant to the matter at hand. There are many different types of irrelevant appeal, many different ways of influencing what people think without using evidence. Each is a different type of fallacy of relevance. Examples For example, an appeal to authority seeks […]

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Genetic fallacy

The genetic fallacy is committed when an idea is either accepted or rejected because of its source, rather than its merit. Even from bad things, good may come; we therefore ought not to reject an idea just because of where it comes from, as ad hominem arguments do. Equally, even good sources may sometimes produce […]

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Fallacy of Division

The fallacy of division is the reverse of the fallacy of composition. It is committed by inferences from the fact that a whole has a property to the conclusion that a part of the whole also has that property. Like the fallacy of composition, this is only a fallacy for some properties; for others, it […]

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Fallacy of Composition

The fallacy of composition is the fallacy of inferring from the fact that every part of a whole has a given property that the whole also has that property. This pattern of argument is the reverse of that of the fallacy of division. It is not always fallacious, but we must be cautious in making […]

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Fallacist’s Fallacy

The fallacist’s fallacy involves rejecting an idea as false simply because the argument offered for it is fallacious. Having examined the case for a particular point of view, and found it wanting, it can be tempting to conclude that the point of view is false. This, however, would be to go beyond the evidence. It […]

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Decision-making, belief, and behavioral biases: List

Many of these biases affect belief formation, business and economic decisions, and human behavior in general. They arise as a replicable result to a specific condition: when confronted with a specific situation, the deviation from what is normally expected can be characterized by: Name Description Ambiguity effect The tendency to avoid options for which missing […]

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Social Biases: List

Most of these biases are labeled as attributional biases. Name Description Actor–observer bias The tendency for explanations of other individuals’ behaviors to overemphasize the influence of their personality and underemphasize the influence of their situation (see also Fundamental attribution error), and for explanations of one’s own behaviors to do the opposite (that is, to overemphasize […]

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Memory Biases: List

In psychology and cognitive science, a memory bias is a cognitive bias that either enhances or impairs the recall of a memory (either the chances that the memory will be recalled at all, or the amount of time it takes for it to be recalled, or both), or that alters the content of a reported […]

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Appeal to force (Argumentum ad baculum)

Argumentum ad baculum (Latin for “argument to the cudgel” or “appeal to the stick”), also known as appeal to force, is an argument where force, coercion, or the threat of force, is given as a justification. It is a specific case of the negative form of anargument to the consequences. For this reason, it is […]

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Circular reasoning

Circular reasoning (Latin: circulus in probando, “circle in proving”; also known as circular logic) is a logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with. The components of a circular argument are often logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. Circular reasoning is not […]

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