LOGICAL FALLACIES HANDLIST: Arguments to Avoid when Writing/Arguing

FALLACIES are statements that might sound reasonable or true but are actually flawed or
dishonest. When readers/listeners detect them, these logical fallacies backfire by making
the audience think the writer/speaker is (a) unintelligent or (b) deceptive. It is important
to avoid them in your own arguments, and it is also important to be able to spot them in
others' arguments so a false line of reasoning won't fool you. Think of this as intellectual
kung-fu: the vital art of intellectual self-defense.

I. FALLACIES OF RELEVANCE: These fallacies appeal to evidence or examples irrelevant

to the argument at hand.

Appeal to Force: (Argumentum ad Baculum, or the “Might-Makes-Right”

Fallacy): This argument uses force, the threat of force, or some other unpleasant backlash
to make the audience accept a conclusion. It commonly appears as a last resort when
evidence or rational arguments fail to convince. Logically, this consideration has nothing to
do with the merits of the points under consideration. Example: “Superintendent, it would
be a good idea for your school to cut the budget by $16,000. I need not remind you that past
school boards have fired superintendents who cannot keep down costs.” While
intimidation might force the superintendent to conform, it does not convince him that the
choice to cut the budget was the most beneficial for the school or community. Lobbyists use
this method when they remind legislators that they represent so many thousand votes in
the legislators’ constituencies and threaten to throw them out of office.

Genetic Fallacy: The genetic fallacy is the claim that, because an idea, product, or
person must be wrong because of its origin. "That car can't possibly be any good! It was
made in Japan!" Or, "Why should I listen to her argument? She comes from California, and
we all know those people are flakes." This type of fallacy is closely related to the fallacy of
argumentum ad hominem, below.

Argumentum Ad Hominem (Literally, “Argument to the Man.” Also called

“Poisoning the Well” and "Personal Attack"): Attacking or praising the people who make
an argument rather than discussing the argument itself. This practice is fallacious because
the personal character of an individual is logically irrelevant to the truth or falseness of the
argument itself. The statement "2+2=4" is true regardless if is stated by a criminal,
congressman, or a pastor. There are two subcategories:

Abusive: To argue that proposals, assertions, or arguments must be

false or dangerous because they originate with atheists, Christians, Muslims,
Communists, the John Birch Society, Catholics, anti-Catholics, racists, anti-
racists, feminists, misogynists (or any other group) is fallacious. This
persuasion comes from irrational psychological transference rather than
from an appeal to evidence or logic concerning the issue at hand. This is
similar to the genetic fallacy.

Circumstantial: To argue that opponents should accept or refute an

argument only because of circumstances in their lives is a fallacy. If one’s
adversary is a clergyman, suggesting that he should accept a particular
argument because not to do so would be incompatible with the scriptures is a
circumstantial fallacy. To argue that, because the reader is a Republican, he
must vote for a specific measure is likewise a circumstantial fallacy. The
 opponent’s special circumstances do not affect the truth or untruth of a
specific contention. The speaker or writer must find additional evidence
beyond that to make a strong case.

Argumentum Ad Populum ("Argument to the People"): Using an appeal to

popular assent, often by arousing the feelings and enthusiasm of the multitude rather than
building an argument. It is a favorite device with the propagandist, the demagogue, and the
advertiser. An example of this type of argument is Shakespeare’s version of Mark Antony’s
funeral oration for Julius Caesar. There are three basic approaches:

1. Bandwagon Approach: “Everybody is doing it.” This argumentum ad

populum asserts that, since the majority of people believes an argument or
chooses a particular course of action, the argument must be true or the
course of action must be the best one. For instance, “85% of consumers
purchase Quarko computers rather than Hyperion; all those people can’t be
wrong. Quarko must make the best computers.” Popular acceptance of any
argument does not prove it to be valid, nor does popular use of any product
necessarily prove it is the best one. After all, 85% of people possibly once
thought planet earth was flat, but that majority's belief didn't mean the earth
really was flat! Keep this in mind, and remember that all should avoid this
logical fallacy.

2. Patriotic Approach: “Draping oneself in the flag.” This argument

asserts that a certain stance is true or correct because it is somehow
patriotic, and that those who disagree are somehow unpatriotic. It overlaps
with pathos and argumentum ad hominem to a certain extent. The best way
to spot it is to look for emotionally charged terms like Americanism, rugged
individualism, motherhood, patriotism, godless communism, etc. A true
American would never use this approach. And a truly free man will exercise
his American right to drink beer, since beer belongs in this great country of
ours. This approach is unworthy of a good citizen.

3. Snob Approach: This type of argumentum ad populum doesn’t

assert “everybody is doing it,” but rather that “all the best people are doing
it.” For instance, “Any true intellectual would recognize the necessity for
studying logical fallacies.” The implication is that anyone who fails to
recognize the truth of the author’s assertion is not an intellectual, and thus
the reader had best recognize that necessity. In all three of these examples,
the rhetorician does not supply evidence that an argument is true; he merely
makes assertions about people who agree or disagree with the argument.

Appeal to Tradition (Argumentum ad Traditionem): This line of thought asserts

that a premise must be true because people have always believed it or done it.
Alternatively, it may conclude that the premise has always worked in the past and will thus
always work in the future: “Jefferson City has kept its urban growth boundary at six miles
for the past thirty years. That has been good enough for thirty years, so why should we
change it now? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Such an argument is appealing in that it seems
to be common sense, but it ignores important questions. Might an alternative policy work
even better than the old one? Are there drawbacks to that longstanding policy? Are
circumstances changing from the way they were thirty years ago?
 Appeal to Improper Authority (Argumentum ad Verecundium): An appeal to an
improper authority, such as a famous person or a source that may not be reliable. This
fallacy attempts to capitalize upon feelings of respect or familiarity with a famous
individual. It is not fallacious to refer to an admitted authority if the individual’s expertise
is within a strict field of knowledge. On the other hand, to cite Einstein to settle an
argument about education is fallacious. To cite Darwin, an authority on biology, on
religious matters is fallacious. To cite Cardinal Spellman on legal problems is fallacious. The
worst offenders usually involve movie stars and psychic hotlines. A subcategory is the
Appeal to Biased Authority. In this sort of appeal, the authority is one who truly is
knowledgeable on the topic, but unfortunately one who may have professional or personal
motivations that render that judgment suspect: “To determine whether fraternities are
beneficial to this campus, we interviewed all the frat presidents.” Indeed, it is important to
get "both viewpoints" on an argument, but basing a substantial part of your argument on a
source that has personal, professional, or financial interests at stake may lead to biased
arguments.

Argumentum Ad Misericordiam: An emotional appeal concerning what should be

a logical issue. While pathos generally works to reinforce a reader’s sense of duty or
outrage at some abuse, if a writer/speaker tries to use emotion for the sake of getting the
reader/listener to accept a logical conclusion, the approach is fallacious. For example, in
the 1880s, Virginian prosecutors presented overwhelming proof that a boy was guilty of
murdering his parents with an ax. The defense presented a "not-guilty" plea for on the
grounds that the boy was now an orphan, with no one to look after his interests if the
courts were not lenient. This appeal to emotion obviously seems misplaced, and it is
irrelevant to the question of whether or not he did the crime.

Argument from Adverse Consequences: Asserting that an argument must be false

because the implications of it being true would create negative results. For instance, “The
medical tests show that Grandma has advanced cancer. However, that can’t be true because
then she would die! I refuse to believe it!” The argument is illogical because truth and
falsity are not contingent based upon how much we like or dislike the consequences of that
truth. Grandma, indeed, might have cancer in spite of how it might affect her or us.

Argument from Personal Incredulity: Asserting that opponent’s argument must

be false because you personally don’t understand it or can’t follow its technicalities. For
instance, one person might assert, “I don’t understand that engineer’s argument about how
airplanes can fly. Therefore, I cannot believe that airplanes are able to fly.” Au contraire
that speaker’s own mental limitations do not limit the physical world — so airplanes may
very well be able to fly in spite of his or her inability to understand how they work. One
person’s comprehension is not relevant to the truth of a matter.

II. COMPONENT FALLACIES: Component fallacies are errors in inductive and deductive
reasoning or in syllogistic terms that fail to overlap.

Begging the Question (also called Petitio Principii and “Circular Reasoning”): If
the writers/speakers assume as evidence for their argument the very conclusion they are
attempting to prove, they engage in the fallacy of begging the question. The most common
form of this fallacy is when the claim is initially loaded with the same conclusion one has
yet to prove. For instance, suppose a particular student group states, "Useless courses like
English 101 should be dropped from the college's curriculum." The members of the group
then immediately move on, illustrating that spending money on a useless course is
something nobody wants. Yes, we all agree that spending money on useless courses is a bad
thing. However, those students never did prove that English 101 was itself a useless
course--they merely "begged the question" and moved on to the next component of the
argument, skipping the most important part. Begging the question is often hidden in the
form of a complex question (see below).

Circular Reasoning is a subtype of begging the question. Often the authors word the
two statements sufficiently differently to obscure the fact that that the same proposition
occurs as both a premise and a conclusion. Richard Whately wrote in Elements of Logic
(London 1826): “To allow every man unbounded freedom of speech must always be on the
whole, advantageous to the state; for it is highly conducive to the interest of the community
that each individual should enjoy a liberty perfectly unlimited of expressing his
sentiments.” Obviously the premise is not logically irrelevant to the conclusion, for if the
premise is true the conclusion must also be true. It is, however, logically irrelevant in
proving the conclusion. In the example, the author is repeating the same point in different
words, and then attempting to "prove" the first assertion with the second one. An all too
common example is a sequence like this one: "God exists." "How do you know that God
exists?" "The Bible says so." "Why should I believe the Bible?" "Because it's the inspired
word of God." The so-called "final proof" relies on unproven evidence set forth initially as
the subject of debate. Surely God deserves a more intelligible argument than the circular
reasoning proposed in this example!

Hasty Generalization (also called “Jumping to Conclusions,” "Converse

Accident," and Dicto Simpliciter): Mistaken use of inductive reasoning when there are
too few samples to prove a point. In understanding and characterizing general cases, a
logician cannot normally examine every single example. However, the examples used in
inductive reasoning should be typical of the problem or situation at hand. If a logician
considers only exceptional or dramatic cases and generalizes a rule that fits these alone, the
author commits the fallacy of hasty generalization. One common type of hasty
generalization is the Fallacy of Accident. This error occurs when one applies a general rule
to a particular case when accidental circumstances render the general rule inapplicable.
For example, in Plato’s Republic, Plato finds an exception to the general rule that one
should return what one has borrowed: “Suppose that a friend when in his right mind has
deposited arms with me and asks for them when he is not in his right mind. Ought I to give
the weapons back to him? No one would say that I ought or that I should be right in doing
so. . . .” What is true in general may not be true universally and without qualification. So
remember, generalizations are bad. All of them. Every single last one. Another common
example of this fallacy is the misleading statistic. Suppose an individual argues that women
must be incompetent drivers, and he points out that last Tuesday at the Department of
Motor Vehicles, 50% of the women who took the driving test failed. That would seem to be
compelling evidence from the way the statistic is set forth. However, if only two women
took the test that day, the results would be far less clear-cut.

False Cause: This fallacy establishes a cause/effect relationship that does not exist.
There are various Latin names for various analyses of the fallacy. The two most common
include these:

Non Causa Pro Causa: a general, catchall category for mistaking a false
cause of an event for the real cause.
 Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc: Literally, "After this, therefore because of
this." This type of false cause occurs when the writer/speaker mistakenly
assumes that, because the first event preceded the second event, it must
mean the first event must have caused the later one. Sometimes it does, but
sometimes it doesn't. It is the honest writer’s/speaker’s job to establish that
connection rather than merely assert it. The most common examples are
arguments that viewing a particular movie or show, or listening to a
particular type of music “caused” the listener to perform an antisocial act--to
snort coke, shoot classmates, or take up a life of crime. These may be
potential suspects for the cause, but the mere fact that an individual did these
acts and subsequently behaved in a certain way does not yet conclusively
rule out other causes. Perhaps the listener had an abusive home-life or
school-life, suffered from a chemical imbalance leading to depression and
paranoia, or made a bad choice in his companions. Other potential causes
must be examined before asserting that one event or circumstance alone
caused an event. Frequently, sloppy thinkers confuse correlation with
causation.

Ignorantio Elenchi (Irrelevant Conclusion): This fallacy occurs when a

rhetorician adapts an argument purporting to establish a particular conclusion and directs
it to prove a different conclusion. For example, when a particular proposal for housing
legislation is under consideration, a legislator may argue that decent housing for all people
is desirable. Everyone, presumably, will agree. However, the question at hand concerns a
particular measure. The question really isn't, "is it good to have decent housing?" The
question really is, "will that measure provide decent housing or is there a better
alternative?" This type of fallacy is a common one in student papers when students use a
shared assumption--such as the fact that decent housing is a desirable thing to have--and
then spend the bulk of their essays focused on that fact rather than the real question at
issue. It's very similar to begging the question, above.

One of the most common forms of ignorantio elenchi is the “Red Herring.” A red
herring is a deliberate attempt to change the subject or divert the argument from the real
question at issue; for instance, “Senator Jones should not be held accountable for cheating
on his income tax. After all, there are other senators who have done far worse things.”
Another example: “I should not pay a fine for reckless driving. There are many other people
on the street who are dangerous criminals and rapists, and the police should be chasing
them, not harassing a decent tax-paying citizen like me.” Certainly, worse criminals do
exist, but that it is another issue! The question at hand is, did the speaker drive recklessly,
and should he pay a fine for it?

Another similar example of the red herring is the fallacy known as Tu Quoque (Latin
for "And you too!"), which asserts that the advice or argument must be false simply because
the person presenting the advice doesn't always follow it herself. For instance, "Reverend
Jeremias claims that theft is wrong, but how can theft be wrong if Jeremias himself admits
he stole objects when he was a child?" Or "Thomas Jefferson himself kept slaves, so we
should dismiss his arguments in favor of freeing them."

Straw Man: This fallacy is a type of red herring in which a writer/speaker creates
an oversimplified, easy-to-refute argument, places it in the mouth of his opponent, and then
tries to "win" the debate by knocking down that empty or trivial argument. For instance,
one speaker might be engaged in a debate concerning welfare. The opponent argues,
"Tennessee should increase funding to unemployed single mothers during the first year
after childbirth because they need sufficient money to provide medical care for their
newborn children." The second speaker retorts, "My opponent believes that some parasites
who don't work should get a free ride from the tax money of hard-working honest citizens.
I'll show you why he's wrong. . ." In this example, the second speaker is engaging in a straw
man strategy, distorting the opposition's statement into an oversimplified form so he can
more easily "win." However, the second speaker is only defeating a dummy-argument
rather than honestly engaging in the real nuances of the debate.

Non Sequitur (literally, "It does not follow"): A non sequitur is any argument that
does not follow from the previous statements. Usually what happened is that the writer
/speaker leaped from A to B and then jumped to D, leaving out step C of an argument she
thought through in her head, but did not put down on paper. The phrase is applicable in
general to any type of logical fallacy, but logicians use the term particularly in reference to
syllogistic errors such as the undistributed middle term, non causa pro causa, and
ignorantio elenchi. A common example would be an argument along these lines: "Giving up
our nuclear arsenal in the 1980s weakened the United States' military. Giving up nuclear
weaponry also weakened China in the 1990s. For this reason, it is wrong to try to outlaw
pistols and rifles in the United States today." Obviously a step or two is missing here.

The "Slippery Slope" Fallacy (also called "The Camel's Nose Fallacy") is a non
sequitur in which the speaker argues that, once the first step is undertaken, a second or
third step will inevitably follow, much like the way one step on a slippery incline will cause
a person to fall and slide all the way to the bottom. It is also called "the Camel's Nose
Fallacy" because of the image of a sheik who let his camel stick its nose into its tent on a
cold night. The idea is that the sheik is afraid to let the camel stick its nose into the tent
because once the beast sticks in its nose, it will inevitably stick in its head, and then its
neck, and eventually its whole body. However, this sort of thinking does not allow for any
possibility of stopping the process. It simply assumes that, once the nose is in, the rest must
follow--that the sheik can't stop the progression once it has begun--and thus the argument
is a logical fallacy. For instance, if one were to argue, "If we allow the government to
infringe upon our right to privacy on the Internet, it will then feel free to infringe upon our
privacy on the telephone. After that, FBI agents will be reading our mail. Then they will be
placing cameras in our houses. We must not let any governmental agency interfere with
our Internet communications, or privacy will completely vanish in the United States." Such
thinking is fallacious; no logical proof has been provided yet that infringement in one area
will necessarily lead to infringement in another, no more than a person buying a single can
of CocaCola in a grocery store would indicate the person will inevitably go on to buy every
item available in the store, helpless to stop herself.

Either/Or Fallacy (also called "the black and white fallacy" “excluded middle,”
and "false dilemma” or “false dichotomy"): This fallacy occurs when a writer/speaker
builds an argument upon the assumption that there are only two choices or possible
outcomes when actually there are several. Outcomes are seldom so simple. This fallacy
most frequently appears in connection to sweeping generalizations: “Either we must ban X
or the American way of life will collapse.” "We go to war with Canada, or else Canada will
eventually grow in population and overwhelm the United States." "Either you drink Burpsy
Cola, or you will have no friends and no social life." You must avoid either/or fallacies, or
everyone will think you are foolish.
 Faulty Analogy: Relying only on comparisons to prove a point rather than arguing
deductively and inductively. “Education is like cake; a small amount tastes sweet, but eat
too much and your teeth will rot out. Likewise, more than two years of education is bad for
a student.” The analogy is only acceptable to the degree to which a reader agrees that
education is similar to cake. As you can see, faulty analogies are like flimsy wood, and just
as no carpenter would build a house out of flimsy wood, no writer should ever construct an
argument out of flimsy material.

Undistributed Middle Term: A specific type of error in deductive reasoning in

which the minor premise and the major premise may or may not overlap. Consider these
two examples: (1) “All reptiles are cold-blooded. All snakes are reptiles. All snakes are
cold-blooded.” In the first example, the middle term “snakes” fits in the categories of both
“reptile” and “things-that-arecold-blooded.” (2) “All snails are cold-blooded. All snakes are
cold-blooded. All snails are snakes.” In the second example, the middle term of “snakes”
does not fit into the categories of both “things-that-are-cold-blooded” and “snails.”
Sometimes, equivocation (see below) leads to an undistributed middle term.

Contradictory Premises (also called a "Logical Paradox"): Establishing a

premise in such a way that it contradicts another, earlier premise. For instance, "If God can
do anything, he can make a stone so heavy that he can't lift it." The first premise establishes
a deity that has the irresistible capacity to move other objects. The second premise
establishes an immovable object impervious to any movement. If the first object capable of
moving anything exists, by definition, the immovable object cannot exist, and vice-versa.
Closely related is the fallacy of Special Pleading, in which the writer/speaker creates a
universal principle, then insists that principle does not for some reason apply to the issue
at hand. For instance, “Everything must have a source or creator that caused it to come into
existence. Except God.” In such an assertion, either God must have his own source or
creator, or else the universal principle must be set aside—the person making the argument
can’t have it both ways logically.

III. FALLACIES OF AMBIGUITY: These errors occur with ambiguous words or phrases, the
meanings of which shift and change in the course of discussion. Such more or less subtle
changes can render arguments fallacious.

Equivocation: Using a word in a different way than the author used it in the original
premise, or changing definitions halfway through a discussion. When we use the same
word or phrase in different senses within one line of argument, we commit the fallacy of
equivocation. Consider this example: “Plato says the end of a thing is its perfection; I say
that death is the end of life; hence, death is the perfection of life.” Here the word end means
goal in Plato's usage, but it means last event in the author's second usage. Clearly, the
speaker is twisting Plato's meaning of the word to draw a very different conclusion.

Amphiboly (from the Greek word “indeterminate”): This fallacy is a subtype of

equivocation. Here, the ambiguity results from grammatical construction. A statement may
be true according to one interpretation of how each word functions in a sentence and false
according to another. When a premise works with an interpretation that is true, but the
conclusion uses the secondary “false” interpretation, we have the fallacy of amphiboly on
our hands. In the command, “Save soap and waste paper,” the amphibolean use of the word
waste results in the problem of determining whether "waste" functions as a verb (Should I
save the soap but waste all the paper?) or as an adjective ("Is that a pile of waste paper I
should save along with the soap?").

Composition: This fallacy is a result of reasoning from the properties of the parts of
the whole to the properties of the whole itself--it is an inductive error. Such an argument
might hold that, because every individual part of a large tractor is lightweight, the entire
machine also must be lightweight. This fallacy is similar to Hasty Generalization (see
above), but it focuses on parts of a single whole rather than using too few examples to
create a categorical generalization. Also compare it with Division (see below).

Division: This fallacy is the reverse of composition. It is the misapplication of

deductive reasoning. One fallacy of division argues falsely that what is true of the whole
must be true of individual parts. Such an argument concludes that because Mr. Smith is an
employee of an influential company, he must be an influential individual. Another fallacy of
division attributes the properties of the whole to the individual member of the whole.
"Microtech is an immoral business incorporation that engages in unethical trading
schemes. Susan Jones is a janitor at Microtech. She must be an immoral individual."

Fallacy of Reification (Also called “Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness” by

Alfred North Whitehead): The fallacy of treating a word or an idea as equivalent to the
actual thing represented by the word or idea, or the fallacy of treating an abstraction or
process as equivalent to a concrete object or thing. In the first case, we might imagine a
reformer trying to eliminate illicit lust by banning all mention of extra-marital affairs or
certain sexual acts in publications. The problem is that eliminating the words for these
deeds is not the same as eliminating the deeds themselves. In the second case, we might
imagine a person or declaring “a war on poverty.” In this case, the fallacy comes from the
fact that “war” implies a concrete struggle with another nation. “Poverty,” however is an
abstraction that cannot surrender or sign peace treaties, cannot be shot or bombed, etc.
Reification of the concept merely confuses the issue of what policies to follow.

IV. FALLACIES OF OMISSION: These errors occur because the logician leaves out material
in an argument or focuses exclusively on missing information.

Stacking the Deck: In this fallacy, the speaker "stacks the deck" in her favor by
ignoring examples that disprove the point, and listing only those examples that support her
case. This fallacy is closely related to hasty generalization, but the term usually implies
deliberate deception rather than an accidental logical error. Contrast it with the straw man
argument.

‘No True Scotsman’ Fallacy: Attempting to stack the deck specifically by defining
terms in such a narrow or unrealistic manner as to exclude or omit relevant examples from
a sample. For instance, suppose speaker #1 asserts, “The Scottish national character is
brave and patriotic. No Scottish soldier has ever fled the field of battle in the face of the
enemy.” Speaker #2 objects, “Ah, but what about Lucas MacDurgan? He fled from German
troops in World War I.” Speaker #1 retorts, “Well, obviously he doesn’t count as a true
Scotsman because he did not live up to Scottish ideals, thus he forfeited his Scottish
identity.” By this fallacious reasoning, any individual who would serve as evidence
contradicting the first speaker’s assertion is conveniently and automatically dismissed
from consideration. We commonly see this fallacy when a company asserts that it cannot
be blamed for one of its particularly unsafe or shoddy products because that particular one
doesn’t live up to its normally high standards, and thus shouldn’t “count” against its fine
reputation. Likewise, defenders of Christianity as a positive historical influence in their zeal
might argue the atrocities of the eight Crusades do not “count” in an argument because the
Crusaders weren’t living up to Christian ideals, and thus aren’t really Christians, etc.

Argument from the Negative: Arguing from the negative asserts that, since one
position is untenable, the opposite stance must be true. This fallacy is often used
interchangeably with Argumentum Ad Ignorantium (listed below) and the either/or fallacy
(listed above). For instance, one might mistakenly argue that, since the Newtonian theory
of mathematics is not one hundred percent accurate, Einstein’s theory of relativity must be
true. Perhaps not. Perhaps the theories of quantum mechanics are more accurate, and
Einstein’s theory is flawed. Perhaps they are all wrong. Disproving an opponent’s argument
does not necessarily mean your own argument must be true automatically, no more than
disproving your opponent's assertion that 2+2=5 would automatically mean another
argument that 2+2=7 must be the correct one.

Argument from a Lack of Evidence (Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam): Appealing

to a lack of information to prove a point, or arguing that, since the opposition cannot
disprove a claim, the opposite must be true. An example of such an argument is the
assertion that ghosts must exist because no one has been able to prove that they do not
exist.

Hypothesis Contrary to Fact (Argumentum Ad Speculum): Trying to prove

something in the real world by using imaginary examples, or asserting that, if
hypothetically X had occurred, Y would have been the result. For instance, suppose an
individual asserts that if Einstein had been aborted in utero, the world would never have
learned about relativity, or that if Monet had been trained as a butcher rather than going to
college, the impressionistic movement would have never influenced modern art. Such
hypotheses are misleading lines of argument because it is often possible that some other
individual would have solved the relativistic equations or introduced an impressionistic art
style. The speculation is simply useless when it comes to actually proving anything about
the real world. A common example is the idea that one "owes" her success to another
individual who taught her. For instance, "You owe me part of your increased salary. If I
hadn't taught you how to recognize logical fallacies, you would be flipping hamburgers at
McDonald's right now." Perhaps. But perhaps the audience would have learned about
logical fallacies elsewhere, so the hypothetical situation described is meaningless.

Complex Question (Also called the "Loaded Question"): Phrasing a question or

statement in such a way as to imply another unproven statement is true without evidence
or discussion. This fallacy often overlaps with begging the question (above), since it also
presupposes a definite answer to a previous, unstated question. For instance, if I were to
ask you “Have you stopped taking drugs yet?” my supposition is that you have been taking
drugs. Such a question cannot be answered with a simple yes or no answer. It is not a
simple question but consists of several questions rolled into one. In this case the unstated
question is, “Have you taken drugs in the past?” followed by, “If you have taken drugs in the
past, have you stopped taking them now?” In cross-examination, a lawyer might ask a
flustered witness, “Where did you hide the evidence?” The intelligent procedure when
faced with such a question is to analyze its component parts. If one answers or discusses
the prior, implicit question first, the explicit question may dissolve.
Complex questions appear in written argument frequently. A student might write, “Why is
private development of resources so much more efficient than any public control?” The
rhetorical question leads directly into his next argument. However, an observant reader
may disagree, recognizing the prior, implicit question remains unaddressed. That question
is, of course, whether private development of resources really is more efficient in all cases,
a point that the author skips entirely and merely assumes to be true without discussion.

V. A USEFUL TOOL IN LOGIC: OCCAM'S RAZOR

The term "Occam's Razor" comes from a misspelling of the name William of
Ockham. Ockham was a brilliant theologian, philosopher, and logician in the medieval
period. One of his rules of thumb has become a standard guideline for thinking through
issues logically. Occam's Razor is the principle that, if two competing hypotheses deal with
a single phenomenon, and they both generally reach the same conclusion, and they are
both equally persuasive and convincing, and they both explain the problem or situation
satisfactorily, the logician should always pick the less complex one. The one with the fewer
number of moving parts, so to speak, is most likely to be correct. The idea is always to cut
out extra unnecessary bits, hence the name "razor." An example will help illustrate this.

Suppose you come home and discover that your dog has escaped from the kennel
and chewed large chunks out of the couch. Two possible hypotheses occur to you. (1)
Hypothesis number one is that you forgot to latch the kennel door, and the dog pressed
against it and opened it, and then the dog was free to run around the inside of the house.
This explanation requires two entities (you and the dog) and two actions (you forgetting to
lock the kennel door and the dog pressing against the door). (2) Hypothesis number two is
that some unknown person skilled at picking locks managed to disable the front door, then
came inside the house, set the dog free from the kennel, then snuck out again covering up
any sign of his presence and then relocked the door, leaving the dog free inside to run amok
in the house. This hypothesis requires three entities (you, the dog, and the lock-picking
intruder) and several actions (picking the lock, entering the house, releasing the dog, hiding
the evidence, relocking the door). It also requires us to come up with a plausible motivation
for the intruder--a motivation that is absent at this point.

Either hypothesis would be an adequate and plausible explanation. Both explain the
same phenomenon (the escaped dog) and both employ the same theory of how, i.e., that the
latch was opened somehow, as opposed to some far-fetched idea about canine
teleportation or something crazy like that.

Which hypothesis is most likely correct? If you don't find evidence like strange fingerprints
or human footprints or missing possessions to support theory #2, William of Ockham
would say that the simpler solution (#1) is most likely to be correct in this case. The first
solution only involves two parts--two entities and two actions. On the other hand, the
second explanation requires at least five parts--you, the dog, a hypothetical unknown
intruder, some plausible motivation, and various actions. It is needlessly complex. Occam's
basic rule was "Thou shalt not multiply extra entities unnecessarily," or to phrase it in
modern terms, "Don't speculate about extra hypothetical components if you can find an
explanation that is equally plausible without them." All things being equal, the simpler
theory is more likely to be correct, rather than one that relies upon many hypothetical
additions to the evidence already collected