Logical Fallacies Essay

Dicto Simpliciter

This is a fallacy where everything a person learns whether in class or outside is applied in real life situations even though the circumstances in life are quite different. For instance, drinking alcohol is bad. In a real sense, alcohol, when taken in smaller quantity, does not affect a person's health. Furthermore, alcohol cures stomachache. Hence alcohol can only be harmful if taken in excess.

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Hasty Generalization

Making a general conclusion over an entire population after a short interaction with a person from the group. Also, the outcome can be over a thing. For example, a person at one time buys chocolate and finds it rotten. The person ends up concluding that all chocolates from that specific company are spoiled.

Post Hoc

Blaming someone for a certain thing that keeps happening whenever the person is around yet in the real sense the person has no connection to the thing. A good example is where a person has belief in a certain cloth bringing good luck on his or her way. In the real sense, there is nothing like the cloth bringing good chance it is only what the individual carries in mind.

Contradictory Premises

Making a contradicting statement that makes no room for an argument since the statement is confusing. For example, a robber is merciless, can he kill anyone? It is evident that a person without mercy can carry out any atrocity; therefore the statement is contradictory.

Ad Misericordiam

A person evades giving the correct answer to a question asked but appeals for sympathy. For instance, a child stays out the whole day, and when the mother asks where he or she was, the child says, "I fell on the stairs this morning mum, look at how my leg is swollen and hurting."

False Analogy

Making an analogy between two different situations that seem similar. For example, a person has a headache, so the nurse gives him Panadol, another patient suffering from a headache due to hitting the head hard on a blunt object sees this and tells the nurse to give him the same medicine since they are both suffering from headaches (Shulman, p. 3). In a real sense, the first patient just had a headache but the second patient may have a different case due to the hitting.

Hypothesis Contrary to Fact

Supporting a wrong hypothesis or statement with a conclusion. For example, a friend teaches another friend how to ride a bike and ends up concluding that if not for him, the friend could not have learned to ride a bike. This is wrong since of course the mother, father, sisters, brothers or even a neighbor could have taught him to ride the bike.

Poisoning the Well

Judging someone before he or she has spoken. In this case, the person ends up lacking confidence knowing that what he or she will say will not be accepted. For example, it is like saying a comedian can never say realistic things. In this case, it is hard to converse with a comedian knowing that what he or she says will not be taken seriously.

Hasty Generalization is a fallacy I commonly see in media being used by President Donald Trump while speaking about Africa. He always makes a general conclusion that Africans are poor yet in real sense Africa consist of different countries. It is unfair to make a general conclusion over the entire continent since the countries within it vary regarding the economy. For instance, you cannot compare the economic state of South Africa to that of Sudan. The economic state of Sudan is as it is due to the leadership disputes that have affected lives of people. However, South Africa is well developed since it experiences nothing of what is happening in Sudan.

Reflecting on the logical fallacies, I realize that people inclusive of me make mistakes due to lack of proper thinking before making decisions. We only assume or narrowly look at an idea and then make a conclusion to start the next step, an action that ends up negatively affecting our progress in life. Therefore, with this knowledge, I will start practicing each of the logical fallacies in my daily activities, making changes on how I initial handled things. In short, I will start by critically thinking over the things I had wrongly handled initially and thus make a correction.

This is a fallacy where everything a person learns whether in class or outside is applied in real life situations even though the situations in life are quite different. For instance, drinking alcohol is bad. In real sense, alcohol, when taken in smaller quantity, does not affect a person's health. Furthermore, alcohol cures stomachache. Hence alcohol can only be harmful if taken in excess.

Works Cited

Shulman, Max. "Love is a Fallacy." The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (Garden City, NY: Garden City Press, 1953) 47 (1995).