The Fallacious Argument

1.0 What is a Fallacy ?

An argument, whatever its subject or sphere, is generally constructed in such a way as to prove its conclusion true. But any argument can fail to fulfil this purpose in two ways. One way it can fail is by assuming a false proposition as one of premises. As we know, every argument involves the claim that the truth of its conclusion follows from, or is implied by, the truth of its premises. So if its premises are not true, the argument fails to establish the truth of its conclusion, even if the reasoning based on those premises is correct. To test the truth or falsehood of premises, however, is not the special responsibility of the logician, it is rather the task of inquiry in general, since premises may deal with any

In a passage that appears to be fallacious, it may be difficult to determine out of context what means the author intended for the term used. Sometimes the accusation of Fallacy is unjustly levelled at a passage that was intended by its author to make a point missed by the critic perhaps even to make a joke. We should bear such unavoidable complications in mind as we apply the analysis of fallacious argument to actual discourse. Our logical standards should be high, but our application of them to arguments in ordinary life should also be generous and fair. How many different kinds of mistake in arguments, different fallacies may be distinguish? Aristotle, the first systematic logician, identified 13 types, recently a listing of more than 100 has been developed. There is no precisely determinable number of fallacies, however, since much depends, in counting them, on the system of classification used. We distinguish 17 fallacies here, the most common and most deceptive mistake in reasoning are divided into three group

a) Fallacies of relevance

b) Fallacies of

Irrelevance may perhaps better describe the problem, but premises are often psychologically relevant to the conclusion and this relevance explain their seeming correctness and persuasiveness. How psychological relevance can be confused with logical relevance can be explained in part by different uses of language. Latin names traditionally have been given to many fallacies, some of these such as ad hominem have become part of the English Language. We will use here both the Latin and the English