Logical Fallacies

Why is it important to know how to identify logical fallacies?

An ad hominem attack

• is a very effective debate strategy
• goes after a person's argument.
• is always against a popular idea.
• is an attack on the person, not the argument 

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.8

CCSS.RI.11-12.5

CCSS.RI.11-12.8

CCSS.RI.8.8

CCSS.RI.9-10.5

Charlie: I think we should put more money into schools. Quality public education is so important.

Bob: So you’re saying we should cut military spending and spend it instead on more spiral notebooks and crayons? I guess you want our country to be a weak, defenseless target for terrorists.

• Ad Hominem

• Hasty Generalization

• Faulty Causality

• Straw Man

Tags

CCSS.RI.8.1

CCSS.RI.8.8

CCSS.RL.11-12.1

CCSS.RL.8.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

My opponent raises a good point, but can we really trust him? I mean, he moved to this town only two years ago and everyone knows that his wife left him.

• Slippery Slope

• Sentimental Appeal

• Bandwagon

• Ad Hominem

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.8

CCSS.RI.11-12.5

CCSS.RI.11-12.8

CCSS.RI.8.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.5

Oh, please. What would you know about labor laws? You don’t even have a job.

• Ad Hominem

• Scare Tactic

• Hasty Generalization

• Sentimental Appeal

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.8

CCSS.RI.11-12.5

CCSS.RI.11-12.8

CCSS.RI.8.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.5

You need to go to the party with me, otherwise you’ll just be bored at home.

• hasty generalization

• post hoc

• false dichotomy

• appeal to ignorance

• tu quoque

Tags

CCSS.RI.8.1

CCSS.RI.8.8

CCSS.RL.11-12.1

CCSS.RL.8.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

I know the professor said the Bridges of Madison County was smarmy trash and lacked any artistic worth. But I still think he's wrong. After all, it was on the best-seller list for over 100 weeks.

• Scare Tactics

• Red Herring

• Bandwagon Argument

• Begging the Question

Tags

CCSS.RI.8.1

CCSS.RI.8.8

CCSS.RL.11-12.1

CCSS.RL.8.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

Match the following

• Drawing a conclusion with too small of a sample size

• Red herring

• Attacking a distortion of the argument instead of the argument

• Hasty generalization

• Correlation does not equal causation

• Tu quoque

• Answering a question with a distraction

• False cause

• "You do it, too!"

• Straw man

An ad hominem attack

• is a very effective debate strategy
• goes after a person's argument.
• is always against a popular idea.
• is an attack on the person, not the argument 

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.8

CCSS.RI.11-12.5

CCSS.RI.11-12.8

CCSS.RI.8.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.5

"The mind is like a knife, cutting through difficult problems. But just as too much cutting dulls a knife, so too much education dulls the mind."

• False dilemma

• False analogy

• Equivocation

• Circular reasoning

Tags

CCSS.L.6.5B

CCSS.L.8.5B

CCSS.W.11-12.2D