Logical Fallacy Summaries

Latin Name: accentus (also known as:  emphasis fallacy, fallacy of accent, fallacy of prosody, …

Latin Name: a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid (also known as: destroying the exception, di…

Latin Summary: argumentum ad fidentia (also known as: against self-confidence) Description: Attackin…

Latin Name: ad hoc (also known as: making stuff up, MSU fallacy) Description: Very often we desperat…

Latin Name: argumentum ad hominem (also known as:  personal abuse, personal attacks, abusive fa…

Latin Name: argumentum ad hominem (also known as: appeal to bias, appeal to motive, appeal to person…

Latin Name: argumentum ad hominem (also known as:  association fallacy, bad company fallacy, co…

Latin Name: argumentum ad hominem tu quoque (also known as:  appeal to hypocrisy, “you too” fal…

(also known as: illicit negative, drawing an affirmative conclusion from negative premises, fallacy …

(also known as: converse error, fallacy of the consequent, asserting the consequent, affirmation of …

(also known as: assuming the conclusion) Description: Asserting a conclusion without evidence or pre…

Description: The deliberate and excessive use of acronyms and abbreviations to appear more knowledge…

(also known as: lose-lose situation) Description: When one is presented with just two choices, both …

(also known as:  argument from omniscience, “how the hell can you possibly know that?&#82…

(also known as: ambiguous assertion, amphiboly, amphibology, semantical ambiguity, vagueness) Descri…

(also known as: appeal to anonymous authority) Description: When an unspecified source is used as ev…

(also known as: personification) Description: The attributing of human characteristics and purposes …

(also known as: appeal to success) Description: When the argument being made is sheltered from criti…

Latin Name: argumentum ad iram (also known as: appeal to hatred, loathing, appeal to outrage, etc.) …

Latin Name: argumentum ad verecundiam (also known as: argument from authority, ipse dixit) Descripti…

Description: Accepting a claim of a celebrity based on his or her celebrity status, not on the stren…

(also known as:  appeal to justice [form of]) Description: Accepting evidence on the basis of w…

(also known as: appeal to luck, appeal to bad luck, appeal to good luck) Description: Concluding tha…

Latin Name: argumentum ad populum (also known as: appeal to accepted belief, appeal to democracy, ap…

(also known as: appeal to the common man) Description: In place of evidence, attempting to establish…

Description: Asserting that your conclusion or facts are just “common sense” when, in fact, they are…

Latin Name: argumentum ad consequentiam (also known as: appeal to consequences of a belief, argument…

(also known as: appeal to the dictionary, victory by definition) Description: Using a dictionary’s l…

Description: Arguing that your conclusion, solution, or proposition is right based on the fact that …

(also known as: appeal to pathos, argument by vehemence, playing on emotions, emotional appeal, for …

(also known as:  appeal to egalitarianism, appeal to equity) Description: An assertion is deeme…

Description: Erroneously attempting to make a reasonable argument into an absurd one, by taking the …

Description: This is an abandonment of reason in an argument and a call to faith, usually when reaso…

(also known as: appeal to doubtful authority, appeal to dubious authority, appeal to improper author…

Latin Name: argumentum in terrorem (also known as: argumentum ad metum, argument from adverse conseq…

(also known as: apple polishing, wheel greasing, brown nosing, appeal to pride / argumentum ad super…

Latin Name: argumentum ad baculum (also known as: argument to the cudgel, appeal to the stick) Descr…

Latin Name: deus vult (also known as: gott mit uns, manifest destiny, special covenant) Description:…

(also known as:  appeal to the gut) Description: Evaluating an argument based on “intuiti…

(also known as: appeal to patriotism [form of]) Description: When one is either implicitly or explic…

Latin Name: Argumentum ad Naturam Description: When used as a fallacy, the belief or suggestion that…

Description: Using social norms to determine what is good or bad.  It is the idea that normalit…

Latin Name: argumentum ad novitatem (also known as: appeal to the new, ad novitam [sometimes spelled…

Latin Name: ad misericordiam (also known as: appeal to sympathy, appeal to victimhood [form of]) Des…

Latin Name: argumentum ad numeram (also see: appeal to common belief) Description: Using the popular…

Description: When a conclusion is assumed not because it is probably true or it has not been demonst…

Latin Name: reductio ad ridiculum (also known as: appeal to mockery, the horse laugh) Description: P…

Description: Making the claim that something is “self-evident” when it is not self-evide…

Latin Name: argumentum ad odium Description: Substituting spite (petty ill will or hatred with the d…

Description: Attempting to get the audience to devalue reason and intellectual discourse, or devalui…

Description: When following the law is assumed to be the morally correct thing to do, without justif…

(also known as: argumentum ad lunam) Description: Using the argument, “If we can put a man on the mo…

Latin Name: argumentum ad antiquitatem (also known as: appeal to common practice, appeal to antiquit…

(also known as:  appeal to distrust [opposite], appeal to trustworthiness) Description: The bel…

(also known as: loaded words, loaded language, euphemisms) Description: Substituting facts and evide…

Description: When fast talking is seen as intelligence and/or confidence in the truth of one’s argum…

(also known as: bafflement, argument by [prestigious] jargon) Description: When incomprehensible jar…

(also known as: sex appeal, flamboyance, eloquence) Description: When an argument is made stronger b…

(also known as: argument by stubbornness, invincible ignorance fallacy) Description: This is a refus…

Latin Name: argumentum ad nauseam (also known as: argument from nagging, proof by assertion) Descrip…

Description: When a series of arguments or claims is made and the opponent acts as if the weakest ar…

(also known as: wisdom of the ancients) Description: The misconception that previous generations had…

Latin Name: argumentum ad logicam (also known as: disproof by fallacy, argument to logic, fallacy fa…

Description: When a person making a claim is presented as an expert who should be trusted when his o…

(also known as: the telephone game, Chinese whispers, anecdotal evidence, anecdotal fallacy/Volvo fa…

Latin Name: ad ignorantiam (also known as: appeal to ignorance, appeal to mystery [form of], black s…

(also known as:  argument from personal astonishment, argument from personal incredulity, perso…

Latin Name: argumentum e silentio Description: Drawing a conclusion based on the silence of the oppo…

(also known as: fallacy of the beard, heap fallacy, heap paradox fallacy, bald man fallacy, continuu…

Latin Name: argumentum ad temperantiam (also known as: appeal to moderation, middle ground, false co…

Latin Name: argumentum ad crumenam (also known as: appeal to poverty or argumentum ad lazarum, appea…

(also known as: avoiding the question [form of], missing the point, straying off the subject, digres…

(also known as: neglecting base rates, base rate neglect, prosecutor’s fallacy [form of]) Desc…

Latin Name: petitio principii (also known as: assuming the initial point, assuming the answer, chick…

(also known as: biased statistics, loaded sample, prejudiced statistics, prejudiced sample, loaded s…

(also known as: blind obedience, the “team player” appeal, Nuremberg defense, divine aut…

(also known as: glazier’s fallacy) Description: The illusion that destruction and money spent …

Description: This is a combination of circular reasoning and the genetic fallacy. It is the assumpti…

(also known as: complex cause, fallacy of the single cause, causal oversimplification, reduction fal…

(also known as: ignoring inconvenient data, suppressed evidence, fallacy of incomplete evidence, arg…

Description: A circular definition is defining a term by using the term in the definition.  Iro…

Latin Name: circulus in demonstrando (also known as: paradoxical thinking, circular argument, circul…

(also known as: the fallacy of the consequent, converting a conditional) Description: Switching the …

Latin Name: plurium interrogationum (also known as: many questions fallacy, fallacy of presuppositio…

Latin Name: contradictio in adjecto (also known as: a self-contradiction, self-refuting idea) Descri…

Description: Treating an explanation of a fact as if it were a justification of the fact, a valid re…

Description: Making the assumption that what cannot currently be explained is, therefore, unexplaina…

(also known as: conjunction effect) Description: Similar to the disjunction fallacy , the conjunctio…

(also known as: canceling hypothesis, canceling hypotheses, cover-ups) Description: Explaining that …

(also known as: fallacy of quoting out of context, quoting out of context) Description: Removing a p…

Description: Sharing an article, post, or meme on social media with the intent to influence public p…

(also known as: persuasive definition fallacy, redefinition) Description: Defining a term in such a …

(also known as: inverse error, inverse fallacy) Description: It is a fallacy in formal logic where i…

(also known as: denying the correlative conjunction) Description: Introducing alternatives when, in …

Description: Similar to the conjunction fallacy, the disjunction fallacy occurs when one estimates a…

Description: The assertion that a position is different from another position based on the language …

Description: Judging two situations by different standards when, in fact, you should be using the sa…

(also known as: ecological inference fallacy) Description: The interpretation of statistical data wh…

(also known as: doublespeak) Description: Using an ambiguous term in more than one sense, thus makin…

Description: The assumption that the present-day meaning of a word should be/is similar to the histo…