Ask Your Questions About Logical Fallacies

Welcome! This is the place to ask the community of experts and other fallacyophites (I made up that word) if someone has a committed a fallacy or not. This is a great way to settle a dispute!


Dr. Bo's Criteria for Logical Fallacies:

  • It must be an error in reasoning not a factual error.
  • It must be commonly applied to an argument either in the form of the argument or in the interpretation of the argument.
  • It must be deceptive in that it often fools the average adult.
Therefore, we will define a logical fallacy as a concept within argumentation that commonly leads to an error in reasoning due to the deceptive nature of its presentation. Logical fallacies can comprise fallacious arguments that contain one or more non-factual errors in their form or deceptive arguments that often lead to fallacious reasoning in their evaluation.
or
Search title, description, date, and categories.

2
answers
Is Virtue Signaling In An Argument A Fallacy?

In answer to the question posted earlier today, Dr. Bo answered with the historian’s fallacy .  In his discussion of that fallacy, Dr. Bo warns against "Virtue Signaling", which I see is defined as "the sharing of one's point of view on ...

asked on Wednesday, Feb 23, 2022 10:28:02 AM by Ed F
2
answers
You should've thought of that

When someone complains about the consequences of their actions, they often get told that they should've thought of that earlier. Is that a fallacy by any chance? Because I don't think it's reasonable to always expect someone to think of everything t...

asked on Wednesday, Feb 23, 2022 06:24:26 AM by Philip
1
answers
Is this an example of hasty generalization?

Specifically, I came upon this post while scrolling through Instagram. The text in the post reads - “You are getting attached again. Did you forget what happened the last time?” While in general this seems to be cogent enough, I am not...

asked on Monday, Feb 21, 2022 06:17:42 PM by Arthas
3
answers
Dismissal of peer reviewed papers as Appeal To Authority

I present a journal published peer reviewed paper.  The other person claims it is an appeal to authority.  He further says that any experiments I have not done myself is an appeal to authority and will be dismissed. I run into this over a...

asked on Monday, Feb 21, 2022 04:55:06 AM by MicroBeta
0
answers
Existential Fallacy

One interesting fallacy that is rarely discussed is the existential fallacy .  It is a fallacy in formal logic, specifically Syllogistic (or Categorical) Logic, that provides, in essence that a universal statement such as “all X” d...

asked on Saturday, Feb 19, 2022 05:46:31 PM by Ed F
2
answers
Is this ad hominem?

If someone is being toxic in a debate, is pointing out that they are toxic an ad hominem?

asked on Friday, Feb 18, 2022 03:44:26 AM by Red
1
answers
I am confused about this fallacy.

Sorry but something is not clicking when i read the page about, "Shoehorning". It is probably mostly because it sounds like something that has already been covered, trying to, "stuff in" your narrative would sound like: cherry picking if you are...

asked on Thursday, Feb 17, 2022 07:58:12 PM by Zelensky
1
answers
Whataboutism

This is not a question but an observation from today's news. Whataboutism is a variant of ad hominem (tu quoque) , that basically says “you do it too.” (or "did it too").  With Tu Quoque, however, there may be evidence in support ...

asked on Thursday, Feb 17, 2022 12:31:21 PM by Ed F
2
answers
Burden of proof and Occam’z razor

Yes this is directly related to my very previous question and I can’t help but ask this one too so please bear with me.   Very  specifically , who has the burden of proof? If someone claims something ordinary like owning a cat, and...

asked on Wednesday, Feb 16, 2022 03:19:46 PM by Alex
4
answers
Affirming the consequent, evidence and probability

I just came to realize that most of my day to day conclusions are actually the result of affirming the consequent! For example, “If my family ate dinner, then the dishes in the sink would be dirty. The dishes in the sink are dirty, therefore ...

asked on Wednesday, Feb 16, 2022 03:08:26 PM by Alex
Loading...