Logical fallacy means an error of reasoning. The ability to identify logical fallacies in the arguments of others and to avoid them in one’s own argument, is both valuable and increasingly rare. Fallacious reasoning keeps us from knowing the truth, and the inability to think critically makes us vulnerable to manipulation by those skilled in the art of rhetoric. Fallacies are categorized as: formal, informal, logical and factual. Each group of fallacies contain sub-categories of the different forms of that type of fallacy.
Disjunctive Syllogisms
Cowper (n.d.) explains the formal fallacy of disjunctive syllogisms which are propositional words such as: or and as in. For example, "Either you 're for the cops or you 're against the cops," or "Would you like a citation or to be arrested for that trespassing, sir? A disjunction is true if either of the disjuncts is true. This is another way of saying that a disjunction is true whenever at least one of its disjuncts is true (Cowper, n.d.). In the
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In this case, in opposition of attacking the opponent’s argument, the ad hominem attacks the person giving the argument. Instead of addressing the issue presented by an opponent, the ad hominem makes the opponent the issue. The ad hominem is a fallacy because a speaker 's character and circumstances demonstrate nothing about the validity or invalidity of the speaker 's argument or about the truth or falsity of the speaker 's conclusions and can be either abusive or circumstantial (Saunders, 1993). Courts have recognized the fallacy behind ad hominem in a variety of circumstances (Saunders, 1993). However, an abusive ad hominem not be ethical or accepted by the court would be, “the defendant is a mentally ill, jobless, homeless, addict, alcoholic and complete waste of space with nothing to live for, sentencing them 10 years in prison would get them off the