SSH 105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Argumentum Ad Populum, Genetic Fallacy, Perjury

• School: Ryerson University
• Department: Social Sciences and Humanities
• Course: SSH 105
• Professor: Thomas Hart

Document Summary

When an argument doesn"t succeed, the problem will be that the premises are false; or the reasoning is faulty; or both. Certain types of defective arguments are used so frequently that they have been given names: fallacies. They are psychologically persuasive, though logically powerless. They are like optical illusions of the intellect. We study fallacies because we need to be able to detect them; this could be called. Fallacies are divided into two categories: those that have irrelevant premises. They try to use reasons that have nothing to do with the conclusion. Thus, the premises fail to have any logical or probabilistic bearing on the conclusion: those that have unacceptable premises. They use premises that are relevant, but don"t support the conclusion in the way that is claimed by the arguer. Genetic fallacy: arguing that a claim is true or false solely because of its origin (i. e. , who it came from).