Ch. 8 terms - Formal Fallacies and Fallacies of Language

gambler's fallacy

common and seductive mistake that happens when we don't realize that independent events really are independent

prior probability

the probability everything else being equal

overlooking false positive

a fallacy occurs when the probabilities of something's happening are calculated

confusing explanations with excuses

a fallacy of presuming that when someone explains how or why something happened, he/she is either excusing or justifying what happened

amphiboly

a fallacy that makes use of syntactic ambiguity; the structure of the sentence that causes the ambiguity rather than a single word or phrase

composition

a fallacy that occurs when a feature of the parts of something is erroneously attributed to the whole

equivocation

a fallacy that occurs when a speaker or write attempts to demonstrate or support a point by playing on the ambiguity of an expression

undistributed middle

a fallacy that occurs when a speaker or writer assumes that two things related to a third thing are necessarily related to each other that occurs

overlooking prior probabilities

a fallacy that occurs when someone fails to take these underlying probabilities into account

affirming the consequent

a fallacy, consisting of a conditional claim as one premise, a claim that affirms the consequent of the conditional as a second premise, and a claim that affirms the antecedent of the conditional as the conclusion

denying the antecedent

a fallacy, consisting of a conditional claim as one premise, a claim that denies the antecedent of the conditional as a second premise, and a claim that denies the consequent of the conditional as the conclusion

division

assuming that what is true of a group of things taken collectively must also be true of those same things taken individually; or assumming that what is true of a whole is also true of its parts

consequent

the part after then "then" is this of the claim

antecedent

the part of the first premise after the "if" is this of the claim

contradictories

two statements that are exact opposites; they cannot be both be true and cannot both be false

contraries

two statements that cannot both be true but can both be false