![]() The problem here is that you’re relating the incorrect categories with each other. According to the rules of categorical syllogism, the middle term must be distributed at least once for it to be valid.Įxample of the form: All X’s are Y’s All Z’s are Y’s Therefore, All X’s are Z’s.Įxample in words: All ghosts are spooky all zombies are spooky therefore all ghosts are (Also known as undistributed middle term) A formal fallacy that occurs in a categorical syllogism (we’ll look at these later ), when the middle term is undistributed is not distributed at least in one premise. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.” There are other kinds of amphiboly fallacies, like those of ambiguous pronoun reference: “I took some pictures of the dogs at the park playing, but they were not good.” Does ‘they’ mean the dogs or the pictures “were not good”? And there is amphiboly when modifiers are misplaced, such as in a famous Groucho Marx joke: “One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. Their ad said “Used 1995 Ford Taurus with air conditioning, cruise, leather, new exhaust and chrome rims.” But the chrome rims aren’t new at all. The fallacy occurs when a bad argument relies on the grammatical ambiguity to sound strong and logical.Įxample: I’m going to return this car to the dealer I bought this car from. One can often see equivocation in jokes.Įxample: Man is the only rational animal, and no woman is a man, so women are not rational.Įxample: If you don’t pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.Įxample: A feather is light whatever is light cannot be dark therefore, a feather cannot be dark.Ī fallacy of ambiguity, where the ambiguity in question arises directly from the poor grammatical structure in a sentence. In other words, it happens when one term is assumed to mean the same thing in two different contexts, but actually means two different things. ![]() The ambiguity in this fallacy is lexical and not grammatical, meaning the term or phrase that is ambiguous has two distinct meanings. (Also known as doublespeak) A fallacy that occurs when one uses an ambiguous term or phrase in more than one sense, thus rendering the argument misleading. The question rests on the assumption that you sleep in unicorn sheets, and so either answer to it seems to endorse that idea. ![]() This question is a real ‘catch-22’ since to answer ‘yes’ implies that you used to sleep in unicorn sheets but have now stopped, and to answer ‘no’ means you are still sleeping in them. ![]() (Also known as complex question, fallacy of presupposition, trick question) The fallacy of asking a question that has a presupposition built in, which implies something (often questionable) but protects the person asking the question from accusations of false claims or even slander.Įxample: Have you stopped sleeping in unicorn sheets? Being familiar with fallacies makes them very easy to recognize (and avoid yourself, as well as understand how to properly resolve them). Again, a “fallacy” is drawing an unsupported conclusion by using a common method of reasoning that is usually in error. We will be covering fallacies more later in this course, but there are a few that are very relevant right now, as these are all ones that can be fixed by using a definitional approach. If anything can be uncertain, it is best to define it or use other, more precise words. The point of using definitions like these is simple: to make sure that you are clear in what you say. 5 tspīrother-in-law: husband of my sister (OR brother of my wife!) \)ĩ Defining Terms: Types and Purposes of Definitions 21Ĭlearly defining terms is one way of helping to resolve problems of ambiguity and there are many types of definitions one can use:įor the purposes of this class, a “kwijybo” is “a big dumb balding North American ape with no chin and a short temper”Ī small amount of salt is less than.
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