Essay On Logical Fallacies

995 Words2 Pages

Logical Fallacies
Fallacies, in terms of logic, are forms of flawed thinking. They are obstacles—weeds in the garden of the mind, which can be difficult to distinguish from the plants if not closely observed. The nature of fallacies falls in with our nature as human beings—they do not like to be discovered and plucked any more than we like to be the ones to admit that we are incorrect. Accepting responsibility for our actions, and in this case fallacies in our thinking, is the first step to change. Thus, if we can overcome our human pride and admit our flaws to ourselves, we are then empowered to correct them. Therein lies the value of examining these fallacies, which is an important component of studying critical thinking.
Fallacies can be …show more content…

Not being able to see what is there would be considered “suppressed evidence”—this is one of the three main types of fallacy. Without acknowledging all of the contributing factors of a particular situation, we cannot possibly come to a valid conclusion.
If an argument or statement of fact is really true, it will welcome all evidence rather than withhold it. A typical example of the category of suppressed evidence would be the fallacy of “False Dilemma”. It may look something like “If Jimmy goes to bed, he can have a cookie. If he does not go to bed, he will not get a cookie. Therefore, Jimmy will either go to bed with a cookie or stay up without one.” This argument fails to take into account important evidence—that Jimmy could possibly steal a cookie and stay up, or perhaps he will be put to bed with to cookie at all. Either way, there are a multitude of outcomes that could come from this situation; not just two. We as humans tend to leave out important evidence in order to create the result we …show more content…

This is a category of fallacy known as “Questionable Premise”. For instance, “Mike is a murderer. Therefore, Mike deserves to be punished by law.” Well, if the premise is true, than this argument holds water… but many courts have been established in order to investigate that premise! With no evidence, there is absolutely no reason to believe a premise that is just given to us, even though the easy thing to do would be merely to accept the premise as truth. This fallacy can be easy to spot from a

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