Com m on

Logical
Fallacies
Compiled and edited by BOUTI Ahlam
T IT L ES

Introduction/Definitions ---------------------------
The Ad Hominem Fallacy -------------------------
The Tu Q uoque Fallacy ----------------------------
The Straw Man Fallacy -----------------------------
The Appeal to Ignorance ---------------------------
The Slippery Slope Fallacy --------------------------
The Petitio Fallacy ----------------------------------
The Questionable Fallacy ---------------------------
The Sunk Cost Fallacy ------------------------------
The Appeal to Pity Fallacy --------------------------
The Bandwagon Fallacy ----------------------------
The Dilemma Fallacy -------------------------------
The Red Herring Fallacy ----------------------------
The Appeal to Authority Fallacy --------------------
The Equivocation Fallacy ---------------------------
 What do we
mean by
logical fallacy ?

There are different kinds of logical

fallacies that people make in presenting
their positions . So a logical fallacy is
defined as a flaw in reasoning , it is a
seductive error in reasoning . In other
words logical fallacies are ways to skip
around or win an argument .
WHY DO PEOPLE
DELIBERATELY USE
LOGICAL FALLACIES?
Because they are pursuasive ,especially in high school
logical fallacies are implied more effectively to confuse
and convince the person you are talking with , because no
one cares if you are right or wrong , as you sound right no
one can argue with you.

As human beings we tend to believe the facts that suit our

opinions , so during a negotiation we use them to twist
the facts and prove our positions.
Finally, some people depend on
logical fallacies because they are
afraid . The fact is that people feel
inferior, and think that they will be
less loved if they can not argue
logically about an issue , so they
commit logical fallacies.
 THE REASON BEHIND STUDYING
LOGICAL FALLACIES

It is true that during a debate or an issue if

you simply point out to your opponent a
logical fallacy that he has just made , it
generally gives you the upper hand. Logical
fallacies hide the truth, so point them out is
very useful and you can do that by
becoming familiar with them.
WHAT IS AD
HOMINEM?
Ad hominem is trying to refute an
argument by attacking the character
of the person making it. Rather than
the logic or premise of the argument
itself.
THE ORIGINS OF THE
WORD

Ad hominem or literally “to a man” in Latin. The

word is made up of ad- and hominem, which is
an accusative of the word homo which
translates to man.
 Types of Ad
Ho min e m attacks
Ad hominem tu Ad hominem
quoque: refers to a circumstantial:
claim that the points out that
source making the someone is in
argument has circumstances such
spoken or acted in a that they are
way inconsistent disposed to take a
with the argument. particular position
(Refer to Tu quoque
fallacy)
 Types of Ad
Homin e m attacks
Poisoning the well: Guilt by association: this
refers to when can also be a type of Ad
someone else is Hominem fallacy if the
primed to distrust argument attacks a source
someone else’s in because of the similarity
advance. between the views of
someone making an
argument and other
proponents of the
argument. (Refers to the
Red Herring fallacy)
TU QUOQUE
FALLACY
 The “tu quoque,” Latin for
Example:
“you too,” is also called the
“ app eal to hypocrisy”
b e ca us e it distracts from the
If J a c k sa ys, “Maybe I
argument by pointing out
c o m m itt ed a little adultery,
hypocrisy in the opponent.
but so did you J a s o n ! ” J a c k is
This tact ic doesn’t solve the
trying to diminish his
problem, or prove one’s point,
responsibility or d efen d his
b e ca us e even hypocrites c an
act io ns by distributing b l a m e
tell the truth. Focusing on the
to other people. But no one
other person’s hypocrisy is a else’s guilt excu ses his own
diversionary tactic. In this guilt. No m a tter who els e is
way, using the tu quoque guilty, J a c k is still a n
typically deflects criticism ad ulterer.
a w ay from yourself by
acc using the other person of
the s am e problem or
something comp ara ble .
The tu quoque fallacy is an attempt to
divert blame, but it really only distracts
from the initial problem. To be clear,
however, it isn’t a fallacy to simply
point out hypocrisy where it occurs.

The hypocrisy claim becomes a tu

quoque fallacy only when the arguer
uses some (appa re nt ) hypocrisy to
neutralize criticism and distract from
the issue.
 The Straw Man
Fallacy

The straw man fallacy is particularly common

in political debates, and in discussion over
controversial topics .
It makes use of misrepresentations to make an
argument look weak .
It’s meant to distract from the real issue
being discussed, and is not a logically valid
argument.
The logical form of ‘’straw man fallacy’’:
Person 1 makes a claim
Person 2 restates person 1’s claim (in a destorted way )

=> Therefore claim A is false

Example:
P1: Advertisement for beer encourage people to drink
P2: drinking often has negative consequences
Therefore, advertisements for beer should be band
fro m TV
(Hurley.‘’ A concise introduction to logic ‘’)
 The Apeal to
Ignorance
«Ad
ignorantim»
It is a fallacy of defective induction, which
means, the mistakes in this fallacy arise from
the fact that the premises of the argument
are so weak though relevent to the
conclusion. One can commit this kind of
fallacy if he or she argues that something is
true just because it has not yet been proved
false, or false because it has not been proved
true.
 Examples:
1)You cannot prove time travel will not be possible in the
future, therefore it will be possible.
2)You cannot prove that ghosts exist, therefore they do not
exist.
3)You cannot prove that ghosts do not exist, therefore they
exist.
4)Since students have no questions ,they have all understood
the lesson
5)very well

Notice:
1) This fallacy is not about an ignorant person.
2)This fallacy seems simple and easy to avoid while it is not.
Whenever some great change is proposed, within
an institution or in society at large, those
threatened by it are likely to attack with an
argument from ignorance.

How do we know it will work? How do we know that

it is safe? We do not know, and without the
knowledge that it is workable and safe, we must not
adopt the change proposed.
 The Slippery Slope
Definition:
It is a specific type of logical fallacies. It is a conclusion
based on the premise that one small step will lead to a
chain of events resulting in some significant (usually
negative) effects.

A slippery slope argument is typically a negative

argument where there is an attempt to discourage
someone from taking a course of action, because if they
do it will lead to some unacceptable conclusion.

That is once one event occurs, other related events will

follow and this will eventually lead to an undesirable
consequence.
 Exa m p le s:
-> If you do not wear clothes while it rains, you will be
sick
-> If you get sick,you will not attend an important test
-> If you do not attend the test, you will not succeed.

-> If you lose your job, you will not get money
-> If there is no money, you will not ma rry
-> If you do not marry, there will be no children
-> If you do not ha ve children, you will be a lone.
 Why is Slippery Slope
a fallacy?

Slippery slope is a fallacy because

we do not know if a certain result or
a series of events actually
determined to follow one action in
particular.
 The Petitio Fallacy :

Also known as The petitio principi

« Begging the fallacy in particular is
question « Or the fallacy of
«Circular reasoning » assuming in a premise
that was firstly used a statement that has
by Aristotle and It is the same meaning as
of course an the conclusion. That is
informal fallacy. to sa y , wha t is to be
proved has already
been assumed in the
premise.
 Examples

Murder is a crime

Abortion is murder abortion is a crime

Nike makes the best shoes in the world
- The company that makes the best
shoes in the world can pay its
employees more .
-Companies that pay their employees
more can hire the best people.
The best people can make the best
shoes in the world.
College is beneficial for you , therefore, college is good for
you .
Benificial = good

Another example for the same sentence:

college is beneficial, excellent and valuable for you ,

therefore, college is good for you .

Beneficial, excellent and valuable for you means good for

you . W e conclude that the meaning of the premise is the
same as the conclusion even though the words are
different . As a result, using too many words can actually
cover up the lack of support for the argument.
People do this all the time as a way to look wise and smart,
but the reality is they are lacking the skill of convincing.
This is important to remember, so that you will be able to
identify this fallacy in the future.
The Sunk Cost
Fallacy :
 WHAT IS THE SUNK COST
FALLACY?

Simply it is making a choice not

based on what is best for you but
rather based on a strong desire of
not observing your effort and hard
work go to waste.
 Exa m p le s:

when you have a creer when you are reading

a nd a fter 10 yea rs you a book and you have
decide that it is no a lrea dy rea d 100 pa ge
longer suitable for you and there are 300
moreover you wish to more to rea d , but then
do something else .. you feel bored of the
but then you think and book , yet you decide
you decide that you to finish it because you
don't want your effort have already wasted
of 10 yea rs to be too many time reading
wasted. those 100 pa ge.
Definition:

An appeal to Pity ,is a fallacy which someone tries to gain

support for an argument or idea by exploiting his or her
opponent's feeling or Pity or guilt .It is specific kind of
appeal to emotion .

This fallacy is also closely related to the fallacy known as

an appeal to emotions or an argumentum ad
Misericordiam while an appeal to Pity targets specific
emotions, an appeal to emotion is more general and
preys on any strong feelings, positive or negative
 Exa m p le s:

- Boss :you are late for work I'm going to have

to write you up.
+ Employee :plea se do not write me up, if I get
fired I will lose my house a nd not ha ve a ny
way to feed my family.

=>The employee may have been

completely true, he attempts to replace
evidence of why he may have been
late with an appeal to emotions.
 Exa m p le s:

Oh! officer, there is no reason to give me a

tra ffic ticket for going too fa st, beca use I wa s
just on my way to the hospital to bring blood
bags to my dying child they are needed in a
few minutes

=> This fallacy that consists in

manipulation of the feeling to avoid
punishment.
 Why is it a fallacy?

It substitutes a feeling of pity, compassion or guilty

in place of good reason to accept or to reject a
claim .
It might also be used to get an audience to accept
proffered reason or evidence that would not
provide good ground for a claim .
Sometimes a duty responsibility to care intervene
or assist on the part of the audience will be argued
or assumed, without good grounds.
In some cases it is used to silence or neutralize
opposed views.
In conclusion, we can say that an
appeal to pity tries to win acceptance
by pointing out the unfortunate
consequences that will otherwise fall
upon the speaker and others, for
whom we would then feel sorry.
The Bandwagon Fallacy
Definition:

•The bandwagon is a logical fallacy which argues that the

opinion of the majority is always valid and that one should
accept or reject an opinion because everyone accepts or
reject it. As everyone believes it, you should do too. That
is why it is called “appeal to popularity “ or “the
authority of the many” and argumentum populm” (appeal
to people in Latin”).

•This fallacy consolidates that an idea, belief, behavior

are popular but not true. Moreover, this fallacy is used
by politicians, rulers, debaters to delude the others.
 How to avoid falling in
the trap of this fallacy

This fallacy might be hard to spot , and this is due to its

convincing ability . However, good critical thinkers
can identify and wisely contradict it .
In order to be heedful about this fallacy, think about
what our parents used to tell us when we gave the
excuse of the majority.

“if your friend jumped into a well , would you jump too “.
 Exa m p le s:
Katie likes to read Marcus wants to go Cathy is opposed to
and would rather to a small social media
do that than play community college because she would
sports. Her close to home, but rather have a face-
friends make fun most of the kids in to-face
of her and tell her his class are conversation.
that reading is for applying to larger However, more and
nerds. Katie stops colleges out of state. more of Cathy's
reading so much Marcus decides that friends have joined
and starts to play he should also apply social media sites,
sports more. to those colleges. so Cathy feels like
she needs to create
an account as well.
The Dilemma
Fallacy?
Definition:

This fallacy has a few other names:" black and white

fallacy" "either-or fallacy" and "false dichotomy".

Dilemma fallacy is defined as presenting only two

choices for an issue when there may actually be
additional options . In other words , limiting the
options to two when there are in fact more options
to choose from .The choices that have presented
are not exclusive .
 Why is it a fallacy?
It does not depend on your perception of the
topic instead it is a function of what is been
agreed on in the conversation, also whenever
you make a point based on two opposing sides
you need first to make sure that everyone
involved agrees that those sides are unique
and exclusive .

=> Example "one of us has to be right"

when someone says this, it is not the case at all
because we can both be right or both wrong so
we are discussing a topic from different facets.
However, it is not a fallacy if there are only two
options like saying" either Socrates is the
greatest philosopher of all time, or he is not ",
but it would be fallacious to say " either Socrates
is the greatest philosopher of all time , or you
just hate ancient philosophers ."
 Exa m p le s:
Either we go to war, or
we appear weak.

Either you love me,

or you hate me.

You are either with

or against us.
The false dilemma fallacy is often a manipulative
tool designed to polarize the audience, heroicizing
one side and demonizing the other. It's
common in political discourse as a way of strong-
arming the public into .
Red Herring Fallacy
 Definition:

A red herring is a rhetorical device that diverts

attention from the topic-at-hand.

It is a tool used in argument.

The red herring fallacy causes a distraction in

an argument that draws attention off-topic.
=>That is mainly why a red herring is a type of
logical fallacy.

A red herring is a way for a speaker to win an

argument by bringing up a matter that is
irrelevant to the main issue.
Rough outline of a Red
Herring:

Topic A is argued

Speaker brings up Topic B, irrelevant to Topic A

Topic A is either ignored or forgotten because

Topic B takes precedence

 Red Herrings vs. Other
Logical Fallacies
A red herring is a type of informal logical fallacy. This is
because there is no real logical outline to how a red
herring creates a fallacy.

A red herring may be introduced at any time during an

argument to cause a distraction. It is a method a
speaker uses to win an argument when in fact it has
nothing to do with the topic.

A formal logical fallacy creates a false conclusion based

on a flaw in a logical structure of the argument. Through
deduction, a flaw occurs in a formal fallacy. Formal
fallacies appear to be good arguments, but there is a
flaw in the logic.
Some other informal fallacies
include:

Ad hominem: an attack on character instead of

on topic
Non-sequitur: the conclusion does not follow the
premise
False dilemma: considering limited conclusions
when more are possible
Straw man: responding to an argument that was
not created by the opponent
Begging the question: assuming the conclusion
 Exa m p le s:
Political candidate lays out his plan for
economic stimulus, and his opponent begins to
talk about his tax records and how he has
mislead the public.
The principal begins to question Chad about
the fight that he was just involved in, and Chad
begins to talk about how he has been bullied
at school repeatedly and nothing has been
done.
A man who has cheated on his spouse is
confronted by a friend who tells him that it is
wrong. The man begins to talk about right
versus wrong and who decides.
 Appeal to
Authority
Fall acy

In Logic, Appeal to Authority is an informal fallacy of weak

induction. This fallacy occurs when someone uses the
testimony of an authority in order to warrant their
conclusion, but the authority appealed to is not an
expert in the field in question.
This is when you try to make the case for something
because someone with authority either does or
endorses the action or idea.
For example, let’s say your principal called an
assembly and announced that this winter,
even though it will be cold outside, she
recommends that everyone wear shorts all
season because they look better than pants.
Months later, on a chilly January morning as
you’re leaving for school, your mom calls you
crazy and asks why you’re wearing shorts in
January. She is worried you will catch a cold.
You tell her it’s okay because your principal
said it was a good idea.
 Example in the Movies

A more humorous example can be found in the movie

Mean Girls. In one scene, a girl that goes to school
with The Plastics tells the camera that she went out
and bought army pants and flip flops because the
most popular girl in school, Cady Heron, wore army
pants and flip flops. Because she perceived Cady to be
someone with authority in her school, she thought it
would be a good idea to emulate her. She presented
no other reasoning for wearing the outfit other than
that someone else wore it first.
To conclude, arguments that appeal to authority
often sound very credible. They are based on
people that you trust. But even though you trust
them, and even if they are infrequently wrong, it
is important to present factual rationale to
support your arguments.
In the words of Burton Hillis,
“there’s a mighty big difference between good,
sound reasons and reasons that sound good.”
The Equivocation Fallacy

Also known as doublespeak. It can be explained as the

use of an ambiguous word in a argument .
Example 1:
Every good law should be obeyed .
The law of gravitation is a good law .
Therefore , the law of gravitation should be obeyed .
The ambiguity of this argument depends on the word
law . In the first premise , law means a command given
by some authority .
In the other premise, law refers to a statement of the
uniform way phenomena behave under given conditions
 The fallacy of equivocation is considered to be a fallacy
that occurs when a key term in an argument is used in
an ambiguous way .
Example 2:
The priest told me I should have faith.
I have faith that my son will do well in school this year.
Therefore, the priest should be happy with me.

The term “faith” used by the priest, was in the religious

sense of believing in God without sufficient evidence,
which is different from having “faith” in your son in
which years of good past performance leads to the
“faith” you might have in your son.
"The fallacy of equivocation occurs particularly in
arguments involving words that have a multiplicity
of meanings. To expose the fallacy of equivocation
you give accurate and specific definitions of terms
and show carefully that in one place the definition
of the terms was different from the definition in
another."
 Example :
She cannot bear children .
=> The sentence is ambiguous because of the word" bear"
that could have two different meanings .
We can solve the ambiguity problem by adding extra
information .

Meaning N' 1 : She is unable to give birth to children .

New sentence : she cannot bear children because she is
sterile .

Meaning N '2 : She cannot tolerate children

New Sentence : She cannot bear children If they are noisy .
 The effect of equivocation

The equivocation fallacy is mainly exploited by politicians in their

discourse to make a deceptively persuasive argument while
addressing an audience

Example :
During a school-closure controversy, Chicago Mayor Rahm
Emanuel used the phrase “optimize school resource utilization”
instead of “close schools.” The ambiguity of his language allowed
him to avoid stating directly what his policy entailed. Moreover, this
phrase is so ambiguous that, without prior knowledge of the
situation, you might actually think that Mayor Emanuel’s policy was
the opposite of school closures!
 Conclusion

Sentences which are fallacious due to

equivocation appeal mainly to
politicians for they are really effective
while wanting to hide what a real
purpose of a certain policy is .
 References:
https://thebestschools.org/magazine/15-logical-fallacies-know/
Pages 33-35 and 47-52
https://youtu.be/vpnxd31y0Fo
Page 32
https://www.txstate.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Questionable-
Cause.html
Pages 26-31
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-bandwagon-fallacy-1689158
Pages 43-46
https://writingexplained.org/grammar-dictionary/red-herring
Pages 54-57
http://www.softschools.com/examples/fallacies/red_herring_examples/50
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http://www.mesacc.edu/~barsp59601/text/lex/defs/a/appealtoauthority.html
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