![]() ![]() A generalization is hasty when we endorse a general claim without having observed a sample large enough to be confident that the claim is true. Hasty generalizations are weak generalizations. Hasty Generalization Fallacy : A generalization is stronger or weaker depending on the size of the initial sample.Even good people can be wrong.) Dismissing a claim simply because a bad person says it is an example of Ad hominem. ![]() (Conversely, just because people are good, that doesn’t mean everything they say is true. Hitler is a bad person, but that doesn’t mean that everything he says is false. For example, “Since Hitler is evil, everything he said is false.” A claim’s truth or falsity doesn’t depend on who’s making it. Ad hominem arguments look to falsify an opponent’s argument by attacking the arguer. Ad Hominem Fallacy (also known as a personal attack): Ad hominem means “to the person” in Latin.This is a fallacy because you believe something to be true since it is a popular opinion not because there is a reason to believe that. For example, if I say that there is an afterlife because most people believe in it, this is a fallacy called the appeal to popularity. Appeal to Popularity Fallacy : Appeal to popularity happens when someone makes a claim based on popular opinion or on a common belief among a specific group of people.For example, if I say that there is an afterlife because Aristotle believes in it, this is a fallacy called the appeal to authority. Appeal to Authority Fallacy : Appeal to authority arguments look to support a claim by appeal to the person who’s making the claim.That’s what makes fallacies unreliable forms of reasoning. That’s what makes an argument valid.īy contrast, we’ve seen that with a fallacy, even if the premises are true, it’s still possible for the conclusion to be false. If we fill in values for P and Q that make the premises of the argument true, then it is impossible for the conclusion to be false. You can contrast affirming the consequent with a correct form of reasoning called modus ponens. It’s an example of incorrect reasoning: even if the premises are true, they still don’t give you any reason to accept the conclusion. That’s why we call this form of reasoning a fallacy. Even if you have true premises, those premises still tell you nothing about whether or not the conclusion is true. This shows us that reasoning in this way is unreliable. By analogy, if we correctly execute a multiplication algorithm then we should arrive at the correct product every time.īut notice what happens when we reason by affirming the consequent: sometimes true premises yield a true conclusion, and sometimes they don’t. If we reason correctly from true premises, then we should arrive at a true conclusion every time. When we plug in these values for the variables, we end up with true premises in both of the arguments: it’s true that if it’s 2021, then it’s the 21st century it’s true that if it’s 2016, then it’s the 21st century, and it’s true that it’s the 21st century.īoth arguments, then, have true premises. In Argument B, the variable P has the value ‘it’s 2016’ and the variable Q has the value ‘it’s the 21st Century’. In Argument A, the variable P has the value ‘it’s 2021’ and the variable Q has the value ‘it’s the 21st Century’. Here are two arguments:Īrgument A and Argument B have the same form. The telltale sign of a fallacy is this: even if your premises are true, they still tell you nothing about whether or not your conclusion is true. When reasoning is performed incorrectly, we say that it commits a fallacy. Reasoning can be correct or incorrect in just the way that mathematical calculation can. The statement you’re trying to support is called the conclusion, and the statements that are supposed to support it are called premises. Reasoning, or argumentation, is the process of supporting a statement by appeal to other statements. What’s true in the multiplication case is also true here: if your reasoning doesn’t follow a correct method, then you’re not guaranteed to get a correct conclusion. Suppose now that I ask you to defend some claim that you believe–that I ask you to give me reasons, in other words, to believe that the claim is true. One thing is clear: if you don’t use the correct method, then you’re not guaranteed to get the correct answer. How would you get the correct answer? You’d probably use a calculator or the good old multiplication algorithm you learned as a kid. Suppose I ask you to multiply two large numbers–say 12,653 and 65,321. ![]()
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