As a would be philosopher who loves to engage in rational thought and intellectual argumentation there is nothing more frustrating to me than when some one abuses the God given gift to apprehend logic and strays from the accepted rules of valid reasoning in the the realm of logical fallacies. Here is a short list of particularly annoying fallacies that I hope you avoid in your thinking.
Strawman fallacy this occurs when one takes the position of there opponent and misrepresents it making it easier to refute the "strawman" rather than the actual arguments of the opponent. To give an example say that I am a person in support of the pro-choice position (I'm not but say I was), and in an argument with someone it is said that my position is that of infanticide rather than simple a pro-abortion position. The misrepresentation of my view is clearly immoral and easy to refute.
The Question Begging fallacy One commits the question begging fallacy when they presuppose the conclusion of their argument in one of it's premises. I once knew a person who's stance on ancient history was very strange indeed. He belived that history was false. When asked to justify his position he said that vampire and werewolves stories were passed down in history. Out of pure curosity I asked him how he in fact knew that vampires and the like do not exist. His response "because they took place in history".
the ad hominem fallacy Laten meaning 'to the man' this is when one attempt to refute a person's position by attacking the person rather than the challenging the validity of his arguments. An example would be my saying "Jim can't be right, he's too short therefore he is wrong." The ad hominem is also the most abused of all fallacies. People tend to forget that an arguemnt always involves a premise and a conclusion, therefore it is not always an ad hominem attack to say that someone is foolish, or ugly. It only occurs when you attempt to say that because Bryan has red hair he's wrong.
Thanks for reading.f
