Association fallacy

Association fallacy

An association fallacy is an inductive formal fallacy of the type hasty generalization or red herring which asserts that qualities of one thing are inherently qualities of another, merely by an irrelevant association. The two types are sometimes referred to as guilt by association and honor by association. Association fallacies are a special case of red herring, and can be based on an appeal to emotion.

Form

In notation of First-order logic, this type of fallacy can be expressed as (∃"x"∈"S":"φ(x)")→ (∀"x"∈"S":"φ(x)"), meaning "if there exists any "x" in the set "S" so that a property "φ" is true for "x", then for all "x" in "S" the property "φ" must be true."

:Premise A is a B:Premise A is also a C:Conclusion Therefore, all Bs are Cs

Guilt by association

see also|Collective guilt for legal and ethical aspects

Examples

Some syllogistic examples of guilt by association are:

* Hitler was a vegetarian. Hitler was pure evil. Therefore, vegetarians have evil ideals.
* "Knut attracted people who took pictures. The people also took pictures of Pan Pan, killing him. Knut killed Pan Pan.
* In the BBC sitcom "Yes, Prime Minister", the wordplay-prone Sir Humphrey Appleby commits the logical fallacy "All dogs have four legs; my cat has four legs. Therefore, my cat is a dog."

Guilt by association as an ad hominem fallacy

Guilt by association can sometimes also be a type of ad hominem fallacy, if the argument attacks a person because of the similarity between the views of someone making an argument and other proponents of the argument.

This form of the argument is as follows::A makes claim P.:Bs also make claim P.:Therefore, A is a B.

Honor by association

The logical inverse of "guilt by association" is honor by association, where one claims that someone or something must be reputable because of the people or organizations that are related to it or otherwise support it. For example:

Examples

* "Alice is a lawyer, and Alice thinks highly of Bob. Therefore, Bob must know the law."
* "Aaron will make a good racing car driver, because his friend is a good racing car driver."
* "Citizens of Country X have won more nobel prizes/gold medals/literary awards than citizens of Country Y. Therefore, a citizen of Country X is superior to a citizen of Country Y."

See also

*Ad hominem
*Reductio ad Hitlerum

External links

* [http://www.propagandacritic.com/articles/ct.fc.transfer.html Propagandacritic.com] "Transfer technique"
* [http://www.propagandacritic.com/articles/ct.fc.testimonial.html Propagandacritic.com] "Testimonial"


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • fallacy — /fal euh see/, n., pl. fallacies. 1. a deceptive, misleading, or false notion, belief, etc.: That the world is flat was at one time a popular fallacy. 2. a misleading or unsound argument. 3. deceptive, misleading, or false nature; erroneousness.… …   Universalium

  • Fallacy of quoting out of context — The practice of quoting out of context, sometimes referred to as contextomy or quote mining , is a logical fallacy and a type of false attribution in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended… …   Wikipedia

  • Fallacy — In logic and rhetoric, a fallacy is usually incorrect argumentation in reasoning resulting in a misconception or presumption. By accident or design, fallacies may exploit emotional triggers in the listener or interlocutor (appeal to emotion), or… …   Wikipedia

  • Naturalistic fallacy — The naturalistic fallacy is often claimed to be a formal fallacy. It was described and named by British philosopher G. E. Moore in his 1903 book Principia Ethica. Moore stated that a naturalistic fallacy is committed whenever a philosopher… …   Wikipedia

  • Deductive fallacy — A deductive fallacy is defined as a deductive argument that is invalid. The argument itself could have true premises, but still have a false conclusion.[1] Thus, a deductive fallacy is a fallacy where deduction goes wrong, and is no longer a… …   Wikipedia

  • Mathematical fallacy — In mathematics, certain kinds of mistakes in proof, calculation, or derivation are often exhibited, and sometimes collected, as illustrations of the concept of mathematical fallacy. The specimens of the greatest interest can be seen as… …   Wikipedia

  • "Human genetic diversity: Lewontin's fallacy" (scientific paper) — Infobox Multi Locus Allele Clusters   In a haploid population, when a single locus is considered (blue), with two alleles, + and …   Wikipedia

  • Base rate fallacy — The base rate fallacy, also called base rate neglect or base rate bias, is an error that occurs when the conditional probability of some hypothesis H given some evidence E is assessed without taking into account the base rate or prior probability …   Wikipedia

  • Moralistic fallacy — The moralistic fallacy is in essence the reverse of the naturalistic fallacy. Naturalistic fallacy presumes that what is or what occurs forms what ought to be. Thus the observed natural is reasoned a priori as moral.[1] Moralistic fallacy implies …   Wikipedia

  • Genetic fallacy — The genetic fallacy is a fallacy of irrelevance where a conclusion is suggested based solely on something or someone s origin rather than its current meaning or context. This overlooks any difference to be found in the present situation,… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”