Fallacies of presumption, ambiguity

and grammatical analogy

October 9,2018
 Fallacies of presumption

 The premises presume what they purport to prove

 Begging the question
 (petitio principii) request for the source or beginning,
circular argument
 Attempts to hide the fact that a certain premise may
not be true
 "Women have rights," said the Bullfighters Association
president. "But women shouldn't fight bulls because a
bullfighter is and should be a man."
 The president is saying basically that women shouldn't fight bulls because women shouldn't
fight bulls. This reasoning isn't making any progress.
 Complex question

 Attempts to trick the respondent into making some statements that

will establish the truth of the presumption hidden in the question.
 You use this fallacy when you frame a question so that some
controversial presupposition is made by the wording of the question.
 Example:
 [Reporter's question] Mr. President: Are you going to continue your policy of wasting taxpayer's money on missile
defense?

 The question unfairly presumes the controversial claim that the policy really is a waste of money.
 False dichotomy

 Presumes that an “either… or” statement presents mutually exhaustive

alternatives.
 A reasoner who unfairly presents too few choices and then implies that a
choice must be made among this short menu of choices is using the False
Dilemma Fallacy, as does the person who accepts this faulty reasoning.
 Example:
 A pollster asks you this question about your job: "Would you say your employer is drunk on the job about (a) once a week, (b)
twice a week, or (c) more times per week?

 The pollster is committing the fallacy by limiting you to only those choices.
 Suppressed evidence

 Presumes that no important piece of evidence has been

overlooked by the premises.

 Ex. Most dogs are friendly and pose no threat to people

who pet them. therefore, it would be safe to pet the little
dog that is approaching us now.
Fallacies of Ambiguity
 equivocation

 Conclusion depends on multiple use of a word or phrase

 Really exciting novels are rare.

 But rare books are expensive.

 Therefore, Really exciting novels are expensive.

 Here, the word "rare" is used in different ways in the two premises of
the argument, so the link they seem to establish between the terms of
the conclusion is spurious.
 amphiboly

 Conclusion depends on syntactically ambiguous

statement

 A reckless motorist Thursday struck and injured a student

who was jogging through the campus in his pickup
truck.Therefore, it is unsafe to jog in your pickup truck.
Fallacies of grammatical
analogy
 composition

 Attribute is wrongly transferred from parts to whole

 Every course I took in college was well-organized.

 Therefore, my college education was well-organized.

 Even if the premise is true of each and every component of my

curriculum, the whole could have been a chaotic mess, so this
reasoning is defective.
 division

 Attribute is wrongly transferred from whole to parts

 Joshua's soccer team is the best in the division because it

had an undefeated season and won the division title, so
their goalie must be the best in the division.