The conjunction fallacy is a formal fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that specific conditions are more probable than a single general one. The most often-cited example of this fallacy originated with Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman: Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of […]
Category: Fallacies
Appeal to spite
An appeal to spite (also called argumentum ad odium) is a fallacy in which someone attempts to win favor for an argument by exploiting existing feelings of bitterness, spite, or schadenfreude in the opposing party. It is an attempt to sway the audience emotionally by associating a hate-figure with opposition to the speaker’s argument. Fallacious ad […]
Magical thinking
Magical thinking is the attributing of causal relationships between actions and events where scientific consensus says that there are none. In religion, folk religion, and superstition beliefs, the correlation posited is often between religious ritual, prayer, sacrifice, or the observance of a taboo, and an expected benefit or recompense. In clinical psychology, magical thinking can […]
Informal fallacy
An informal fallacy is an argument whose stated premises fail to support its proposed conclusion. The problem with an informal fallacy often stems from a flaw in reasoning that renders the conclusion unpersuasive. In contrast to a formal fallacy of deduction, the error is not merely a flaw in logic.
Post-purchase rationalization
Post-purchase rationalization, also known as Buyer’s Stockholm Syndrome, is a cognitive bias whereby someone who has purchased an expensive product or service overlooks any faults or defects in order to justify their purchase. It is a special case of choice-supportive bias. Expensive purchases often involve a lot of careful research and deliberation, and many consumers […]
Gambler’s fallacy
The gambler’s fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the mistaken belief that if something happens more frequently than normal during some period, then it will happen less frequently in the future (presumably as a means of balancing nature). In situations where what is being […]
Nirvana fallacy
The nirvana fallacy is the informal fallacy of comparing actual things with unrealistic, idealized alternatives. It can also refer to the tendency to assume that there is a perfect solution to a particular problem. A closely related concept is the perfect solution fallacy. By creating a false dichotomy that presents one option which is obviously […]
Quoting out of context
The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as “contextomy“, is a logical fallacy and a type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning. Contextomies are stereotypically intentional, but may also occur accidentally if someone misinterprets the meaning […]
Masked man fallacy
In philosophical logic, the masked man fallacy (also known as the intensional fallacy and the epistemic fallacy) is committed when one makes an illicit use of Leibniz’s law in an argument. Leibniz’s law states that, if one object has a certain property, while another object does not have the same property, the two objects cannot […]
Proof by example
Proof by example (also known as inappropriate generalization) is a logical fallacy whereby one or more examples are claimed as “proof” for a more general statement. This fallacy has the following structure, and argument form: Structure: I know that X is such. Therefore, anything related to X is also such. Argument form: I know that […]