Fallacies current examples from some current events in the news

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Fallacies

Notes by Bjarke Viskum, University of Stirling, PhD (ip)

1) In order to understand what a fallacy is, one must understand what an argument is. Even the simplest argument has two parts: premises and conclusion. The premises are a set of propositions, which together are supposed to provide a reason for believing the conclusion. In a deductive argument the joint truth of the premises guarantee the truth of the conclusion. A good inductive argument is a valid argument; in an inductive argument the conclusion is likely to be true if the premises are true. A good inductive argument is a strong argument.
2) A fallacy can both simply be an error in thinking or a more or less conscious technique used by a party to fool another party into accepting a false conclusion. To be more specific, a fallacy is an argument where the premises do not support the conclusion to a sufficient degree. A fallacious deductive argument is one where even though the premises are true, the conclusion could still be false. Such an argument would be invalid. A fallacious inductive argument is one where even if the premises were true, the conclusion would not be more likely to be true.
3) Fallacies were first systematically studied by Aristotle in his book On Sophistical Refutations (350 B.C.E.). Though this still remains the seminal book on fallacies, many more fallacies has been added since. Below I have listed a few of the most frequent fallacies using recent political cases to exemplify them.
4) In the ad hominem argument the arguer introduces irrelevant facts about his opponents as evidence against his argument. Thus, the fallacy uses a form of personal attack to undermine the opponent's arguments. As you are probably all too aware, this is probably the ...