Summarizing And Analyzing Fallacies
Summarizing and Analyzing Fallacies
During everyday conversation, individuals will make different statements. Such statements or beliefs are made for a variety of reasons and/or intentions. One may base his or her statement on fact, personal beliefs, bias, ignorance, statistics, or numerous other factors. Through the media, television, printed literature, discussions with friends or colleagues, one routinely encounters different arguments or reasoning that may or may not be logical or sound. This essay will define three logical fallacies that individuals use to persuade and solidify what others believe is factual. It will also address the significance of critical thinking when examining fallacious arguments.
According to Greg Bassham, author of the book titled Critical Thinking: A Students Introduction, a fallacy is a kind of error in reasoning. Fallacies should not be persuasive, but they often are. Fallacies may be created unintentionally, or they may be created intentionally in order to deceive other people. The vast majority of the commonly identified fallacies involve arguments, although some involve explanations, or definitions, or other products of reasoning. Sometimes the term "fallacy" is used even more broadly to indicate any false belief or cause of a false belief (Bassham, G. 2000).
An ad hominem is one example of a fallacy. According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, an ad hominen fallacy is defined as a claim or argument which is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author or the person presenting the claim or argument. Translated from Latin to English, an ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem, literally means "argument aimed at the person", but is usually translated as "argument to the man". Typically, this type of fallacy involves two steps. Step one involves an attack against the character of the person making the claim, his or her circumstances, or his or her actions...
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