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False Cause
(After This, So
Because of This / With
This, So Because of
This / Mistaken Cause)
(261)
Structure
Event B happened just after A.
> probably A caused B.
After this, so because of this
B-type events always just happen after A-type events
> So A-type events are probably the cause of B-type events
With this, so because of this
A-type events are correlated with B-type events
> A-type events probably cause B-type events
Fallacy of
Accident (or Sweeping
Generalisation) (287)
Mistaken cause
A-type events are correlated with B-type events
> B-type events probably cause A-type events
What is true of a thing generally is not necessarily true of it in
some accidental or peculiar circumstance. (i.e. general -> specific)
Arguer applies a general rule to an exception that the rule was not
intended to cover. eg. It is wrong to deliberately strike another person
and that is exactly what that boxer did to his opponent. So what he did
was wrong
Red Herring
(242)
In a red herring fallacy, the author commits herself to arguing for a
certain claim but fails to do so. This happens because the arguer
distracts the audience so that they do not notice that the argument for
the original conclusion has not been completed. The distraction may
happen in 2 different ways
Introduce an attention grabbing claim that may be superficially
similar to but easier to support than the original conclusion. The
arguer than switches to talk about that new subject and the
original conclusion to be supported is forgotten
Make the audience forget about the original claim by rambling
Weak Analogy
(266)
Slippery Slope
(Causal / Semantics)
(288)
Appeal to
Authority (257)
Appeal to
Ignorance (244)
the kind that can be settled by expert opinion at all. e,g, moral
arguments (more challenging to find a suitable authority on morality)
A not proven true
> A must be false.
Absence of evidence cannot, as a rule, be used as support for a
conclusion. In general, we can only draw a definite conclusion from
what we know, not from what we dont know.
Arguments usually take the following structure:
It has never been shown that such-and-such is not the case
> Therefore such-and-such is the case
OR
It has never been shown that such-and-such is the case
> Therefore such-and-such is not the case
Hasty
Generalisation