Fallere

[Jane Sweet]

FALLACIES NAMED

The Argumenta. 

Many material fallacies have fancy medieval names 
beginning with argumentum ad ... They are all arguments not
to the thing, 
not argumenta ad rem, but to something other than the matter
being debated. 

argumentum ad baculum - argument to the stick - appeal to
force: 
argumentum ad crumenam - argument to the purse - appeal to
money. 
argumentum ad hominem - argument to the man. 
argumentum ad misericordiam - appeal to pity. 
argumentum ad ignorantiam - argument to ignorance - use of
information 
     either unknown or to which the other cannot be privy. 
argumentum ad verecundiam - argument to awe or custom. 
argumentum ad populum - argument to the populace, sometimes
called 
argumentum ad captandum vulgus - argument to capture the
vulgar mass. 
argumentum ad judicem - argument to the judge - getting on
the judge's good 
     side. 
ipse dixit - he himself said - appeal to authority. 
tu quoque - you (did it) too - two wrongs don't make a
right. 
non sequitur - it does not follow - irrelevant argument. 
Note that new argumenta occur over and over again and are ad
hoc(ked) on 
     the spur of the moment. 
argumentum ad hoc - ad hoc argument - argument made up to
cover only the 
     particular case at hand. 
argumentum ad convenientiam - argument to convenience - if
we did x we 
     could not do y. 
a fortiori - if x, all the more y. 
argumentum a contrario - argument from the contrary - used
in general to 
     indicate a 
contradictio in adjecto - a self-contradictory argument - e.
g. "all 
     generalizations are false." 
cui bono? - to what good - the "So what?" argument 
argumentum ad exemplum - argument to the example - arguing
against a 
     particular example cited rather than the question
itself. Extremely 
     common at scholarly meetings. 
cadit quaestio - the question falls - poorly posed question. 
argumentum ad veritatem obfuscandam - obfuscatory argument -
bringing up 
     multiple irrelevant arguments. 
accident - arguing from the general to the specific without
taking into 
     consideration extenuating circumstances. 
converse accident - hasty generalization. 
non causa pro causa - a common medieval locution for 
post hoc ergo propter hoc - arguing that one thing is the
cause of another 
     merely on the basis of temporal sequence. 
petitio principii - question begging argument, a mere
restatement of the 
     argument in other terms, sometimes called 
circulus vitiosus or argumentum in circulo 
complex question - two things asked at once, the request to
the judge being 
     to "split the question." 
ignoratio elenchi - irrelevant conclusion - coming to a
conclusion other 
     than that proposed or ignoring extenuating
circumstances. 
equivocatio - using a word sometimes in one meaning,
sometimes in another. 
amphiboly - making use of an ambiguous grammatical
construction. 
accent - changing the original emphasis - also frequently
applied to the 
     misuse of words unfamiliar to the audience. "Some dogs
are spotted; 
     my dog is spotted; my dog is SOME dog." 
composition - arguing from each to all. 
division - what is true of the whole is true of each of the
parts - all to 
     each. 

Also usable: arriere pensee, bromide, captious, chicanery,
casuistry, 
cavil, cum grano salis, gullible, lapsus calami, lapsus
linguae, logic- 
chopping, logomachy, malapropos, parthian shot,
pecksniffery, pettifog, 
quibble, retort courteous (As You Like It). 

It is interesting to make up new ones, along the lines of
scholasticism: 

argumentum ad lunam - (commonly heard these days) "It looks
like a country 
     which could put a man on the moon could ..."