Formal Fallacies
A formal fallacy is an error in logic that can be seen in the argument's form without requiring an understanding of the argument's content. All formal fallacies are specific types of non sequiturs.
- Appeal to probability – takes something for granted because it would probably be the case, (or might possibly be the case).
- Argument from fallacy – assumes that if an argument for some conclusion is fallacious, then the conclusion itself is false.
- Base rate fallacy – making a probability judgement based on conditional probabilities, without taking into account the effect of prior probabilities.
- Conjunction fallacy – assumption that an outcome simultaneously satisfying multiple conditions is more probable than an outcome satisfying a single one of them.
- Masked man fallacy (illicit substitution of identicals) – the substitution of identical designators in a true statement can lead to a false one.
Read more about this topic: List Of Fallacies
Famous quotes containing the word formal:
“True variety is in that plenitude of real and unexpected elements, in the branch charged with blue flowers thrusting itself, against all expectations, from the springtime hedge which seems already too full, while the purely formal imitation of variety ... is but void and uniformity, that is, that which is most opposed to variety....”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)