Informal Fallacy -

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UGC NET Paper 1

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INFORMAL FALLACY
The word “fallacy” comes from the Latin word fallacia, which translates to “deceit”, “deception”
or “trick”. These words describe them quite accurately: they are deceivingly persuasive and are
frequently used to trick or fool people.
Formal fallacy, also known as a non sequitur and deductive fallacy, refers to a flaw in the
structure of a deductive argument.
Informal fallacies deal with the non-structural flaws in arguments. Essentially, they deal with all
the other errors that formal fallacies don’t. Furthermore, although they typically occur in
inductive arguments, they may also apply to deductive ones.
Informal fallacies are so called because their errors lie not in their logical form. Instead, to
appreciate what is wrong with them, we must look at the argument’s content, and thus we
must examine if the reasoning within the argument meets our other criteria presented above
—relevant information and acceptable premises. Such informal fallacies are normally divided
into the following three general categories.
[Link] fallacies: Fallacies of this kind do not present relevant information, or present
irrelevant information for the conclusion.
[Link] fallacies: Such fallacies employ unclear or equivocal terms or propositions, so
that it becomes impossible to grasp a precise sense of what is being argued for. One may be
led to think there may even be no sense at all, due to the indeterminacy of meaning.
[Link] of presumption: In such flawed reasoning, the conclusion rests upon certain
assumptions not explicitly stated in the premises. Such assumptions are false, or at least
uncertain, implausible or unjustified, so that the premises do not strictly support the
conclusion. Explicating the lurking assumption usually suffices to demonstrate the argument’s
insufficiency, either due to a lack of relevant information or unacceptable premises.
Fallacies of Ambiguity
These types of fallacies are caused by a lack of clarity. Some examples include:

Accent fallacy — placing unusual stress or emphasis on certain words to change the
meaning of a sentence.

Composition fallacy — asserting that if something is true of the parts, it must be true of
the whole.

Fallacies of Relevance
Fallacies of relevance attempt to persuade by using non-logical means. They often use
emotional appeals as evidence for the conclusion. For instance:

Appeal to pity — using the feeling of pity to persuade.

Appeal to force — using force or threat of force to persuade.

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Straw man — distorting an opponent’s argument in order to make it easier to attack.

Fallacies of Sufficiency

In essence, fallacies of sufficiency occur when the evidence fails to provide, in one way or
another, adequate support for the conclusion.

Hasty generalization — drawing a conclusion from an insufficient sample size.

False dilemma — presenting only two possible choices when in fact more alternatives
exist.

Weak analogy — drawing a connection between two things, even though the connection
is insufficient for making any conclusions based on it.

Ad Hominem

It occurs when someone attacks the person behind an argument, instead of addressing the
actual merit of their argument. The attacks may be directed towards the person’s character,
morals, background, intelligence, or reputation.
Here are a couple examples:

“You didn’t even finish high school; therefore, we shouldn’t listen to your opinion about
anything!”

Offensive ad hominem. This form of ad hominem consists in calling into question the moral
character of the speaker, thus attempting to dismiss the trustworthiness of the person rather

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than showing the actual mistakes in their arguments. The offensive ad hominem dismisses a
certain opinion on the grounds that those who sustain it are to be dismissed, whatever the
independent qualities of the opinion.
Circumstantial ad hominem. The personal circumstances of one who makes or rejects a claim
are irrelevant to the truth of what is claimed. This fallacy ignores this important fact by
attempting to undermine someone’s argument on the basis of their background, or current
circumstances. For example, one might try to argue that we ought not listen to another’s
argument as they will benefit from the conclusion’s truth. Such an appeal would obviously be
unjustified.
Red Herring
fallacy happens when one derails the original issue to a different, irrelevant one. It’s a
deliberate attempt to move the focus away from a certain topic in order to gain advantage.
An example would be:

Joanna: “Why did you buy that new fishing rod? It exceeds the monthly budget that we
both agreed upon.” John: “Well, because it was on sale. I had to buy it now.”

Straw Man
It occurs when an opponent attacks a distorted version of the original argument that they
themselves created. More accurately, it’s an intentionally misrepresented or exaggerated
version of the issue that better suits the arguer’s agenda.

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Bandwagon
fallacy, also known as “appeal to popularity”, is when something is claimed to be good or true
solely because it is popular. In other words, it’s based on the assumption that a majority’s
opinion must be correct. For example:

“Intermittent fasting is the most popular way to lose weight right now. Thus, it must be
the right way to do it.”

“McDonald’s is the best fast food restaurant in the world, they have served 100 billion
people worldwide.”

Slippery Slope

The fallacy of works by taking the argument from a relatively small first step to an ultimate
conclusion via a number of inaccurate connections. The conclusion is typically some sort of
extreme.

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“If I let my child play video games, she will not do her homework, her grades will suffer,
and she won’t be able to go to college.”

Appeal to power or threat of force (Argumentum ad baculum)

In Latin, “baculum” means a cudgel, bat or stick for hitting.

An argument with a cudgel is then an appeal to brute force, or a threat of using force
instead of reasoning in order to ensure one’s conclusion is accepted.

The ad baculum is a sort of intimidation, either literally by physical power or any other
kind of threat, so someone feels constrained to accept the conclusion independently of
its truth. When someone threatens to use force or power, or any other kind of
intimidation instead of reasoning and arguing, one indeed abandons logic. This can then
be taken as the utmost fallacy, the most radical way of trying to impose a conclusion
without reasoning in favor of it.

Appeal to popular opinion (Argumentum ad populum)

The Latin means more precisely “appeal to the populace.”

This fallacy consists in the mistake of assuming an idea is true just because it’s popular.
Such arguments are fallacious because collective enthusiasm or popular sentiment are
not good reasons to support a conclusion.

This is a very common fallacy in demagogic discourses, propaganda, movies, and TV

shows. Think, for instance, of marketing campaigns that say “products of brand x are
better because they are good sellers.” Or when someone says: “everyone agrees with

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this, why don’t you?” But the “this” can be false even if everyone thinks it is true. The
image below illustrates nicely this fallacy:

Appeal to pity (Argumentum ad misericordiam)

This happens when someone appeals to the audience’s sentiments to compel support for a
conclusion without giving reasons for its truth.

Appeal to authority (Argumentum ad verecundiam)

These are arguments based upon the appeal to some authority, rather than independent
reasons.

We identify it when the speaker starts to cite famous “authorities,” dropping names
instead of giving his or her own reasons, thus recognizing his or her own incapacity to
establish the conclusion of the matter at hand, as if saying: “I acknowledge my ignorance,
there are others who know better than me on this subject.”

This explains its Latin name: “argumentum ad verecundiam,” which is more properly
translated as argument based on modesty, or coyness, referring to the speaker, who
invokes an authority to support their case.

Hasty generalization

This fallacy is committed whenever one holds a conclusion without sufficient data to
support it. In other words, the information used as a basis for the conclusion may well be
true, but nonetheless unrepresentative of the majority.

Some widely known generalizations are unjustified for just this reason, such as “all
Brazilians are football lovers,” “atheists are immoral people,” and “the ends justify the
means.” Such generalizations are based on an insufficient set of cases, and cannot be
justified with only a few confirming instances.

Our beliefs about the world are commonly based on such generalizations. In fact, it is a hard
task not to do so! But that does not mean we should accept such generalizations without
examination, and before seeking enough evidence to support them.

Equivocation

This is one of the most common fallacies. Whenever a term or expression appears with
different meanings in the premises and in the conclusion, the fallacy of equivocation occurs. In
these cases, the speaker relies upon the ambiguity of elements of language and shifts their

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meaning throughout the argument, forcing the audience to accept more than is entailed by
the argument when any one fixed meaning is given to the relevant terms. A classical example
is:

1. The end of a thing is its perfection.

2. Death is the end of life.

Here, “end” can mean “goal” or “termination,” so the conclusion could be that the goal of life is
perfection, or that life is perfected only when it is terminated.

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