ADAMA SCIENCE

AND

TECHNOLOGY UNIVERSITY
GROUP ASSIGNMENT II

COURSE TILTLE: LOGIC AND CRITICAL THINKING

COURSE CODE: LART 1002

INSTRUCTOR : MR. BILISA JEMAL

SECTOIN :1$2

GROUP NAME ID NO :

1. GADISA DUGASA ………….. UGR/26209/14

2. GUTU BELINA …………….. UGR/26654/14

3. SAGNI LAMESA ……………. UGR/25440/14

4. LALISE GERAMU …………… UGR/26068/14

5. DANDI GIRMA ……………….UGR/

Introduction
1.1 A fallacy
1.2 Informal fallacies
1.3 Classificaion of fallacies
1.3. A. fallacies of Relevance and their examples
1.3 B. fallacies of Weak induction and their
examples
1.3 C. fallacies of presumption and their
examples
1.3 D. Fallacies of ambiguity and their examples
1.3 E. fallacies of grammatical analogy and their
examples
–

Write five type of informal fallacy with example?

1.1) A fallacy is a defect in an argument that consists in something other than false
premises alone. Th e fallacies introduced in this chapter involve defective patterns of arguing
that occur so oft en they have been given specifi c names. Such defects comprise either mistakes
in reasoning or the creation of an illusion that makes a bad argument appear good. Th e term
non sequitur (“it does not follow”) is another name for fallacy. Both deductive and inductive
arguments may contain fallacies

1.2) Informal fallacies: are fallacies which are committed in inductive arguments and do
not involve explicit use of invalid form, and thus can be detected only by analyzing their
content. They are simply “arguments” which appear to be inductive arguments, but the
premises do not provided enough support for the conclusion. In such cases, even if the premises
were true, the conclusion would not be more likely to be true.

1.3)Classification of informal Fallacies

A. fallacies of Relevance

B. fallacies of Weak induction

C. fallacies of presumption

D. Fallacies of ambiguity

E. fallacies of grammatical analogy

A. fallacies of Relevance: their conclusion is based on logically irrelevant (unnecessary)

premises containing emotionally loaded words and, therefore, only psychologically relevant.
They are based on emotional appeal and the connection between the premise and the
conclusion is emotional, but not logical. Arguments with irrelevant premises are often known as
“non-sequitures”, which mean that the conclusion does not seem to follow from the premises.
They are also called “argumentative leaps”, which suggests that since no connection is seen
between the premises and the conclusion, a huge leap would be required to move from one to
another

1. Appeal to Force (Argumentum ad Baculum: Appeal to the „„Stick‟‟) or Threat It is also

called appeal to Fear or scare tactics. It replaces reason with stick; Force replaces reason. The
conclusion is based on either physical or psychological intimidation. It is committed when the
arguer threatens (even implicitly) that someone may harm the person unless she/ he accepts the
conclusion ;if you do not accept my conclusion, there will come some harm upon you. General
pattern: 1) Y is presented (a claim that is intended to produce fear). 2) Therefore claim X is true
(a claim that is generally, but need not be, related to Y in some manner). This line of
“reasoning” is fallacious because creating fear in people does not constitute evidence for a
claim.

Example:

"It's bedtime. Give me any sass about it, and you'll get a spanking!"

2. Red Herring: It is committed when the arguer diverts(changes the attention of the reader
or listener by changing the original subject to a different subject or issue, and draws a
conclusion about this new issue or lets it without conclusion. The basic idea is to ―win‖ an
argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another an irrelevant topic.

General form: 1. Topic A is under discussion.

2. Topic B is introduced under the guise of being relevant to topic A (when topic B is actually
not relevant to topic A).

3. Topic A is abandoned or draws a new conclusion.

Example:

1. Son: "Wow, Dad, it's really hard to make a living on my salary." Father: "Consider
yourself lucky, son. Why, when I was your age, I only made $40 a week."

B. Fallacies of Weak Induction: The fallacies of weak induction occur not because the
premises are logically irrelevant to the conclusion, but because the connection between
premises and conclusion is not strong enough to support the conclusion. They are fallacious
arguments based on insufficient ground or evidences. Their conclusions are based on either
little evidence or biased evidence that does not make a reasonable person believe or accept it.
Like the fallacies of relevance, however, the fallacies of weak induction often involve emotional
grounds for believing the conclusion.

1 Hasty Generalization (Converse Accident) It is also known as Fallacy of Insufficient

Sample. This fallacy is committed when a person draws conclusion about a population based on
a sample that is not large enough, from very limited information or exceptional cases or
unrepresentative data or inappropriate sample (too small sample or not randomly selected). It
has the following form: 1. Sample S, which is too small, is taken from population P. 2.
Conclusion C is drawn about Population P based on S. OR 1. X% of all observed A‘s are B‘s. 2.
Therefore X% of all A‘s are B‘s. The fallacy is committed when not enough A‘s are observed to
warrant the conclusion.

Example

“Our exercise program helped several people to lose weight while building more muscle.
Therefore, this program will be effective for everyone.”

2 Weak Analogy: committed when the analogy is not strong enough to support the conclusion
that is drawn, or significant differences between two or more things are ignored, or the
contrasted things are considered alike only in unimportant ways.

Logical Form:

X is like Y.

Y has property P.

Therefore, X has property P.

(but X really is not too much like Y)

Example:

Not believing in the literal resurrection of Jesus because the Bible has errors and contradictions,
is like denying that the Titanic sank because eye-witnesses did not agree if the ship broke in half
before or after it sank.

C. Fallacies of presumption:Fallacies of presumption arise not because the premises are

irrelevant to the conclusion or provide insufficient reason for believing the conclusion but because the
premises presume what they purport to prove. The fallacies of presumption also fail to provide adequate
reason for believing the truth of their conclusions. The conclusion is based on an implicit supposition of
some further proposition whose truth is uncertain or implausible, or based on unwarranted (unjustifiable)
assumption upon which it is based but are assumed as true. Fallacies of presumption request us their
conclusion as it is or at face value.
1. Suppressed Evidence It occurred when the premises ignore some important piece of evidence that
outweighs the presented evidence and entails a very different conclusion. The Arguer ignores or hides
important evidences or clues that require a different conclusion in order to draw the conclusion that is
more favorable to the arguer. The evidence left out typically would support a different conclusion than the
one given. It is a tendency to look only for evidence in favor of one‘s position and not look for
disconfirming evidences. The arguer omits out, de-emphasizes or overemphasizes information or
evidence which is suspected of being significant and relevant but which will count against his own
conclusion.

Example :

“This tablet is very small, beautifully shaped and it smells good. So, it is good if I give it to my child.‖
Here the arguer fails to show the danger of giving medical tablet for children without doctor‘s
prescription.

2. False Dichotomy or False dilemma: It is also known as ‗‗false bifurcation‘‘, the ‗‗either or
fallacy‘‘, or Black & White Thinking. It is committed when a disjunctive statement presents two
jointly exhaustive alternatives (two unlikely alternatives) as if they were the only available
choices (as if no third alternative were possible). And the arguer eliminates the unfavorable
alternative, leaving the desirable alternative as a conclusion. The arguer pretends that he /she
40 | P a g e has tried out all possible alternatives but found only the two choices which are
mutually exclusive (excluding each other), that is if one is true, and then the other is false.
General pattern: 1. Either claim X is true or claim Y is true (when X and Y could both be false). 2.
Claim Y is false. 3. Therefore claim X is true. Ordinarily this fallacy occurs when the ―Either…
or…‖ claim involved considers only extremes and fails to take a third (or the middle) choice into

Example :

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are
with the terrorists. From this day forward any nation that continues to harbor or support
terrorism will be regarded by Ethiopia as a hostile regime.‖ This argument ignores the
possibility that a nation could be neither with Ethiopia nor with the terrorists.

D. Fallacies of ambiguity: The conclusion depends on some kind of linguistic ambiguity:

an expression is ambiguous if it is susceptible to different interpretations in a given context. It is
the result of misuse of language or grammatical structure.

1. Equivocation: equivocate means, literally, to speak in more than one voice. It occurs when
the conclusion of an argument depends on the fact that a word or phrase is used, either
explicitly or implicitly, in two different senses a context in which validity requires a single
meaning of that word (or phrase). Word ambiguity (Equivocation) occurs when a word can be
taken in more than one sense (there is a semantic ambiguity), or when it is unclear to what a
word refers. More specifically, equivocation occurs when the conclusion of an argument relies
on the shift in sense of a word from one premise to another, or from the premise to a conclusion.

Example :
All men are created equal. Since women are not men, women are not created equal with men.
The word ―men‖ is used in two senses: the first use the word ―men‖ refers all human being and
the second use of the word ―men‖ refers only male human beings.

2. Amphiboly Grammatical ambiguity (Amphiboly) takes place when sentence structure is

flawed. The conclusion depends on an incorrect interpretation of ambiguous statement
(misinterpretation of the sentence‘s meaning) made by someone other than the arguer. The
syntactical ambiguity usually arises from a mistake in grammar or punctuation—a missing
comma, a dangling modifier, an ambiguous antecedent of a pronoun, or some other careless
arrangement of words. The structure of the sentence allows two different interpretations. It is
the result of error in grammatical construction. Like equivocation, amphiboly turns on
ambiguity. The difference is that amphiboly turns on ambiguity in sentence structure not in
vocabulary.

Example :

Research on virus harming pregnant women will be delivered. So, this research on virus must
be banned.‖ What the premise is saying is not clear: is it to mean a research on a virus that hurts
pregnant women should be stopped or the research done on virus harms pregnant women.

E. Fallacies of Grammatical Analogy: A defective argument appears to be good as a

result of its being grammatically similar to another argument that is not fallacious but, there is
only similarity in linguistic structure. It is caused by the presumption of analogy of attributes of
the whole entity and its parts, that is, either giving the characteristics of the whole to the parts
or vice versa.

1. Division: It takes place when the conclusion of an argument depends on the erroneous
(illegitimate) transference of an attribute from a whole (or a class) onto its parts (or members). It
is the transferring of attributes of wholes to its parts; mistaking properties of the parts for
properties of the whole.

General pattern: The group or class has some property, A. Therefore, the individual member of
the group or class has that same property, A.

Example :

This perfure, each of the ingredients in the perfume will smell great.

References;
Luckhardt, C. G., & Bechtel, W. (1994). How to Do Things with Logic. Psychology Press

Patrick_J_Hurley_A_concise_introduction_to_logicBookZZ_

https://www2.palomar.edu/users/bthompson/Ad%20Baculum.html

https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definition

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies