Alright, this is what I have found. I am seriously struggling to be good at debates(Just look at my ELO and you know what's up) so I started looking up guides online. Fellow debaters could criticize part of the guide and tell me why with reasonable logic.
Learn the basic logical fallacies so that you can:
- avoid using them
- call them out when someone else uses them.
Here is my list of the ones I have most often had to deal with. The first four are formal logical fallacies, the rest are ‘informal’ fallacies, which is to say, common errors made in ordinary debate.
- Affirming the consequent.
- Premises 1: If A is true, then B is true.
- Premise 2 B is true.
- False conclusion: Therefore A is true.
False, because B can be true without A being true. For example, P1) you can make an omelette with four eggs. P2) I have made an omelette. False conclusion: therefore I started with four eggs. False because: you could have started with three, two or one egg, and made a smaller omelette, or you could have started off with ‘omelette mix’.- Denying the antecedent. The same, but the other way round: If A is true, then B is true. But A is false. This does not mean that B is false (which is what denying the antecedent is). If Mike stole the jewels, then I did not steal the jewels, and therefore I am innocent. Investigation shows that Mike did not steal the jewels. This does not mean that I stole them. They may have been lost, stolen by someone else, or not stolen at all.
- Confusing ‘or’. Also called ‘affirming the disjunct’. A or B is true. A is true. Does this mean that B is not true? This depends on whether the or was an inclusive or exclusive or. English doesn’t make that clear, so you can’t usually reason from ‘A or B is true. B is true’ to ‘A is not true’.
- Confusing the middle (law of the excluded middle, fallacy of the undistributed middle). All Zs are Ys. X is a Y. Therefore X is a Z? No. In this case, although all Zs are Ys, there could be other kinds of things which are Ys. For example, all Zebras are animals. A horse is an animal. This does not mean that a horse is a zebra. On the other hand, if you have A and not-A, there is no middle (this is the law of the excluded middle). Everything falls into A or not-A. However, people often confuse another category which they imagine includes all not-As as being the same. For example, there are animals, and non-animals. Many people assume that ‘non-animals’ means ‘plants’. But it doesn’t. It could also be bacteria, viruses or fungi—or, and this is important—entirely different kinds of things, such as rocks, concepts, metaphors and TV shows. All of these are non-animal, in a logical sense.
- Circular reasoning (including ‘begging the question’). Using the conclusion to prove the premise.
- False appeal to authority. Common in debate, citing someone who is not present and cannot defend their own conclusions, and who is in fact not an authority on this topic. For example, citing a lawyer’s opinion is not the same as citing the statute from a law book.
- Hidden premise. Arguing as if logically using premises, but relying on a concealed or hidden premise, for example, a popular assumption.
- False dichotomy. Presenting two options as the only choices, when in fact there could be others.
- Double meaning. Relying on two different meanings of usages of the same word.
- Etymological fallacy. Claiming that the older or original meaning of a word is its ‘real’ or authoritative meanbing.
- Special pleading. Demanding that a different standard should be applied to something without demonstrating how its uniqueness requires this.
- House of card fallacy. Assembling multiple, inconclusive arguments and claiming that they add up to one conclusive argument.
- Shifting the burden of proof. Making a claim, and then demanding that your opponent prove it is untrue.
- Anthropomorphic fallacy. Treating a subject area as if it were a person. For example ‘science says…’
- Category error/Clumping fallacy. Clumping things together that are separate.
- Splitting fallacy. Treating things that are the same as if they were separate.
- Probabilistic fallacy. Assigning an arbitrary probability to something, and then treating this as if were a fact. Also, arguing that something is incredibly unlikely, and therefore not true. Both are really versions of the Plausibility fallacy.
- Plausibility fallacy/argument from incredulity. Giving credit to something because it sounds reasonable, or discounting it because it sounds unlikely.
- Severity fallacy. Using the shock of the threat of a severe outcome or a severe accusation to make it seem more relevant than a likely outcome or reasonable accusation.
- Argument from silence. ‘We do not know whether… and therefore…’ An absence of evidence cannot be used to defend or attack a particular proposition.
- False correlation fallacy. Claiming that because two things are generally found together, one causes the other. Also called ‘magical thinking’.
- Straw man argument. Creating a caricature of your opponent’s argument, and disproving it.
- Ad hominem. Attacking your opponent rather than dealing with their argument.
- Modernist fallacy. Assumption that things believed now are better than thing believed previously (etc).
- Naturalistic fallacy. Arguing what ought from what is—in violation of the fact-value distinction.
- Motive fallacy. Arguing that someone’s motive invalidates their logic. ‘You are only saying this because…’ An often accepted version of the ad hominem fallacy.
- Consequentialist fallacy/empirical fallacy. Arguing that as x happened before, and the consequences were y, this will always be the case. For example, the sun has always risen, therefore it will rise tomorrow (likely to be true on all but the last occasion).
- Slippery Slope fallacy. ‘If you say this, then you are as good as saying…’ Similar to guilt by association.
- Conspiracy fallacy. The assumption that mistakes or inconsistencies are caused by deliberate conspiracy.
- Perfectionist fallacy. The fallacy that if your opponent makes a mistake, his argument is disproven.
- Cherry picking. Presenting an unrepresentative sample as if it were objective evidence.
- Putting words in someone’s mouth. Attributing a statement to your opponent which is either entirely fictitious, or which is an interpretation, not the exact words they used.
- Irrelevant attribute. Includes red herrings, appeal to wealth, appeal to tradition, appeal to sympathy, etc — making the argument about an aspect of something not related to the matter at hand.
- Guilt by association. Making a connection with a despised thing to invalidate it. For example, claiming that something is ‘cultural appropriation’ or ‘neo-colonialism’ or ‘communism’ in order to discredit it. The ‘check your privilege’ fallacy is part of this.
I think my usage of these fallacies may have myself lost for some debates. Anyways, have a good day!
