On the Informal Fallacies

Have you discovered a new and aptly named fallacy? Please do share. I accept any fallacy by e-mail.

The philosopher always loves a good fallacy. Students in introductory logic classes are required to memorize lists of them: the fallacy of composition, argument ad hominem, the genetic fallacy, and so on. Some climb beyond fame into infamy, like the naturalistic fallacy which may not be a fallacy at all. Fallacies are so much fun that some authors amplify their arguments by coining a fallacy for their opponents to have committed. This page is a collection of such one-off fallacies from real sources. (To my delight, this rhetorical strategy is not confined to philosophers.)

argumentum ad Gaulum

"If the French do it, it therefore must be good." (Chuck Taggart in his explanation of why tripe is just wrong.)

the counterculture fallacy

"...a direct descendant of the Beat fallacy that preceded it by a decade: Lefties of a certain age, like me, still presume, in the face of massive evidence to the contrary, that a conservative who has messed around with mind-altering substances is somehow cooler, less straight, less, well, right-wing, than a conservative who hasn't." (Gary Kamiya in Salon, June 2, 2001)

the covariance fallacy

Presuming that the presence or absent of consensus regarding matters of fact is indicative of agreement or disagreement about the ends with respect to which matters of fact are judged. (Larry Laudan in Science and Values, 1984)

fallacies of functional localization

Because an animal can perform a distinct function, it is supposed there is a distinct place in the animal's body where that function is carried out. (Bill Wimsatt in a public lecture on generative entrenchment, 1998)

the fallacy of internal monologue

Considering the paradigm case of a mental event to be a propositional thought is "a classic case of where highly educated people read back their degenerate form of experience onto everybody else." (Wayne Martin in a reading group on intentionality, 1998)

geek social fallacies

The error of taking a social adaptation of being a geek to an unreasonable extreme; for instance, extending excessive tolerance to disruptive members of the community. (Michael Suileabhain-Wilson in an essay on geekdom)

the linguist's fallacy

A scholar's error in "imputing his own sophisticated attitudes to the speakers he is studying." (Max Black in Linguistic Relativity: the Views of Benjamin Lee Whorf, 1956)

the ludic fallacy

Presuming that performance on some made-up task will generalize to situations actually encountered in the world. "[T]he set-up of situations in academic-style multiple choice questions, made to resemble 'games' with crisp, unambiguous rules. These rules are divorced from both their environment and their ecology. ... [I]f people often sometimes appear inconsistent, as shown in many 'puzzles,' it is often because it is the exam itself that is wrong." (Nassim Nicholas Taleb in the Freakanomics blog at the New York Times, August 9, 2007)

the Netflix fallacy

This is an interesting specimen, because the author coins it so as to describe his own behavior. Unfortunately, it is not entirely clear what the fallacy is supposed to be. The initial example suggests that it's the irrational decision to pay for something which could possibly to be money-saving but which, as one actually uses it, costs more than it is worth. Later discussion suggests that it's about 'intertemporal decision making': If you choose movies one at a time, then you are apt to pick schlocky entertainments— but if you choose a batch of movies all at once, then you are apt to choose some hifalutin films that you won't actually watch. (Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber, July 23 and August 2, 2004)

the 'passes for' fallacy

Since much of what has passed for truth, fact, and objective warrant has been nothing of the sort, it is supposed that there is no truth or objectivity. (Susan Haack in Manifesto of a Passionate Moderate, 1998)

the fallacy of physical object primacy

The name given to "giving physical objects and the criteria that apply to them priority over the whole range of describable phenomena." For instance, GE Moore's "thinking that because it makes sense on a given occasion to assert that you and I are seeing numerically the same physical object, say a particular light bulb, it also makes sense to apply the adjective 'numerically the same' to the after-image I have of that light bulb." (Avrum Stroll in Moore and Wittgenstein on Certainty, 1994)

the psychological or historical fallacy

"A set of considerations which hold good only because of a completed process is read into the content of the process which conditions this completed result." (John Dewey in The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology, 1896)

the fallacy of selective emphasis

After abstracting from raw experience, the resultant abstraction is treated as primary and more real than the experience from which it was abstracted. (John Dewey in Experience and Nature)

reductio ad Hitlerum, argumentum ad Nazium

A Nazi would say that; ergo, it's false. (Leo Strauss, perhaps)

the sentimentalist fallacy

"[T]o shed tears over abstract justice and generosity, beauty, etc., and never to know these qualities when you meet them in the street, because the circumstances make them vulgar." (William James in Pragmatism's Conception of Truth, 1907)

the Wittgenstein fallacy

Inferring "that the profession of philosophy as currently practiced is somehow flawed, because a modern day Wittgenstein would not receive recognition or employment." (Jason Stanley, 2007)