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Equivocation – using a term with more than one meaning in a statement without specifying which meaning is intended. [21] Ambiguous middle term – using a middle term with multiple meanings. [22] Definitional retreat – changing the meaning of a word when an objection is raised. [23]
One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man". The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a ...
A self-refuting idea or self-defeating idea is an idea or statement whose falsehood is a logical consequence of the act or situation of holding them to be true. Many ideas are called self-refuting by their detractors, and such accusations are therefore almost always controversial, with defenders stating that the idea is being misunderstood or that the argument is invalid.
The following example demonstrates why this line of reasoning is a logical fallacy: I've seen a person shoot someone dead. Therefore, all people are murderers. In the common discourse, a proof by example can also be used to describe an attempt to establish a claim using statistically insignificant examples. In which case, the merit of each ...
Another example, on-topic, if in Year A many winning teams have supported revolution (revolutions are less bloody than nuclear war), but in Year B there are teams running counterarguments against revolution, the reasons why supporting revolutions is a winning advantage is still difficult to thwart in one's advocacy that does not include revolution.
Hasty generalization is the fallacy of examining just one or very few examples or studying a single case and generalizing that to be representative of the whole class of objects or phenomena. The opposite, slothful induction , is the fallacy of denying the logical conclusion of an inductive argument, dismissing an effect as "just a coincidence ...
Some words have multiple interpretations and have different meanings dependent upon one's perspective. What one source describes as a 'war', may be described as an 'invasion' by the other side. Use of such words tends to be seen as advocating the views of one side over the other, unless they are clearly attributed to the correct side.
A aggravate – Some have argued that this word should not be used in the sense of "to annoy" or "to oppress", but only to mean "to make worse". According to AHDI, the use of "aggravate" as "annoy" occurs in English as far back as the 17th century. In Latin, from which the word was borrowed, both meanings were used. Sixty-eight percent of AHD4's usage panel approves of its use in "It's the ...