Argumentation Terms
Types of Persuasion:
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Logos—appeal to logic
Pathos—appeal to emotion
Ethos—appeal to reputation
Fallacies of Relevance
The fallacies of relevance, for example, clearly fail to provide adequate reason for believing the truth of
their conclusions. Although they are often used in attempts to persuade people by non-logical means,
only the unwary, the predisposed, and the gullible are apt to be fooled by their illegitimate appeals.
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Ad Hominem--Personal Attack
Bandwagon Fallacy—everybody is doing it
Fallacy of Composition/Fallacy of Division—the whole make up the parts or the parts make up
the whole
Genetic Fallacy—judging an argument upon its source rather than its merit
Appeals—Tradition, Authority, Force, Pity, Popularity (also bandwagon)
Red Herring—distraction/diversion
False Analogy
Fallacies of Ambiguity
Cases where a word or phrase is used unclearly. There are two ways in which this can occur. The word or
phrase may be ambiguous, in which case it has more than one distinct meaning.
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Equivocation—term is used in more than one way in same argument
Straw Man—misrepresenting an opinion
Fallacies of Presumption
These fallacies begin with a false (or at least unwarranted) assumption, and so fail to establish their
conclusion.
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False Cause/Post Hoc—incorrectly attribute cause where it doesn’t apply.
Begging the Question /Circular reasoning): using the conclusion as a premise
Hasty Generalization: Jumping to conclusions
Slippery Slope: falsely assuming that one thing will lead to another
Non sequitur—conclusion does not logically follow the premise