Reification (fallacy) - Relation To Other Fallacies

Relation To Other Fallacies

Pathetic fallacy (also known as anthropomorphic fallacy or anthropomorphization) is a specific type of reification. Just as reification is the attribution of concrete characteristics to an abstract idea, a pathetic fallacy is committed when those characteristics are specifically human characteristics, especially thoughts or feelings. Pathetic fallacy is also related to personification, which is a direct and explicit ascription of life and sentience to the thing in question, whereas the pathetic fallacy is much broader and more allusive.

The animistic fallacy involves attributing personal intention to an event or situation.

Reification fallacy should not be confused with other fallacies of ambiguity:

• Accentus, where the ambiguity arises from the emphasis (accent) placed on a word or phrase
• Amphiboly, a verbal fallacy arising from ambiguity in the grammatical structure of a sentence
• Composition, when one assumes that a whole has a property solely because its various parts have that property
• Division, when one assumes that various parts have a property solely because the whole has that same property
• Equivocation, the misleading use of a word with more than one meaning