3 days ago - A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning in the construction of an argument that may appear to be well-reasoned if unnoticed. The term was introduced in the Western intellectual tradition by the Aristotelian De Sophisticis Elenchis. Fallacies in reasoning may be invoked ...

2 weeks ago - Philosophers are constantly using the word fallacy. For them, a fallacy is reasoning that comes to a conclusion without the evidence to support it.

The vast majority of the commonly identified fallacies involve arguments, although some involve only explanations, or definitions, or questions, or other products of reasoning. Some researchers, although not most, use the term “fallacy” very broadly to indicate any false belief or cause of a false belief.

December 29, 2011 - Fallacies are defects that weaken arguments. By learning to look for them in your own and others’ writing, you can strengthen your ability to evaluate the arguments you make, read, and hear.

A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning. Logical fallacies are like tricks or illusions of thought, and they're often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people.

January 27, 2025 - It is entirely possible to make a claim that is false yet argue with logical coherency for that claim, just as it is possible to make a claim that is true and justify it with various fallacies and poor arguments.

FALLACY meaning: 1. an idea that a lot of people think is true but is in fact false: 2. an idea that a lot of…. Learn more.

2 weeks ago - A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning in the construction of an argument. All forms of human communication can contain fallacies. Because of their variety, fallacies are challenging to classify. They can be classified by their structure (formal fallacies) or content ...

June 23, 2021 - A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning that makes your argument less effective and convincing.

The truth of a claim is established only on the basis of lack of evidence against it. A simple obvious example of such fallacy is to argue that unicorns exist because there is no evidence against such a claim. At first sight it seems that many theories that we describe as scientific involve ...

A fallacy is a misleading argument or belief based on a falsehood. If you oppose state testing in schools, you think it is a fallacy that educational quality can be measured by standardized tests.

You presumed that because a claim has been poorly argued, or a fallacy has been made, that the claim itself must be wrong.

January 9, 2026 - Many people yearn for a crew, but having one is not actually the norm.

1 week ago - This is why the prosecutor’s fallacy survives my critique. Unlike post hoc reasoning or ad hominem arguments—which often depend on context, relevance, and pragmatic constraints—the prosecutor’s fallacy involves a clean mathematical mistake.

May 29, 2015 - Until well past the middle of the twentieth century, discussions of fallacies were for the most part relegated to introductory level textbooks. It was only when philosophers realized the ill fit between formal logic, on the one hand, and natural language reasoning and argumentation, on the other, that the interest in fallacies has returned.

December 17, 2022 - In Mastering Logical Fallacies, Withey (p.11) writes “[w]hen an argument goes wrong, its because its proponent has committed a fallacy.” On this definition, an argument isn’t “bad” simply because someone doesn’t like it. So, it must be bad because it fails to meet some objective standards.

Fallacies are common errors in reasoning that will undermine the logic of your argument. Fallacies can be either illegitimate arguments or irrelevant points, and are often identified because they lack evidence that supports their claim.

Ad Hominem* Ambiguity* Anecdotal* Appeal to Authority* Appeal to Emotion* Appeal to Nature* Appeal to Ridicule Appeal to Tradition Argument from Repetition Argumentum ad Populum Bandwagon* Begging the Question* Burden of Proof* Circular Reasoning* Continuum Fallacy Equivocation* Etymological Fallacy* Fallacy Fallacy* Fallacy of Composition and Division* Fallacy of Quoting Out of Context False Cause & False Attribution* False Dilemma* Faulty Generalization* Furtive Fallacy Gambler's Fallacy* Genetic Fallacy* Ignoratio Elenchi Incomplete Comparison Inflation of Conflict Kettle Logic Loaded Question* Middle Ground* No True Scotsman* Personal Incredulity* Proof by Verbosity Proving Too Much Red Herring* Reification Retrospective Determinism Shotgun Argumentation Slippery Slope* Special Pleading* Strawman* Texas Sharpshooter* Tu Quoque*

3 weeks ago - Because people keep falling for these reasoning traps, they end up believing all sorts of crazy stuff. Still, the theory offers hope: if you memorize the classic fallacies—ad hominem, post hoc, straw man—you will inoculate yourself against them.