Fallacies In Everyday Life

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, a fallacy is defined as a wrong belief; a false or mistaken idea; the quality of being false or wrong. Fallacies are apart of everyday life. We witness them when we read our newspapers, watch our televisions, and listen to our radios. There are over one hundred and twenty named fallacies. Aristotle even wrote about fallacies. In his work Organon, Aristotle wrote a text titled Sophistical Refutations where he identified thirteen fallacies. Fallacies can be persuasive. A fallacy is committed when the reasons or support do not back up the conclusion. This is counter-productive because the reasons are intended to support the conclusion. Some fallacies are accidental and others are intentional. If you aren’t careful you may be tricked by a fallacy. Fallacies are present in everyday life. There are several types of

Those subcategories are: appeal to pity where the premises are intended to appeal to the audience’s sympathy. Appeal to force where the reader is given a negative consequence if they don’t agree with the conclusion. Each of the above fallacies also appeal to emotion. An Appeal to emotion is where the premise is meant to emotionally draw you in. Appeal to emotion which has two subcategories within itself : bandwagon appeal and appeal to vanity sometimes referred to “snob appeal” is intended to appeal to a person’s vanity or need to stand out. Beside the point is an attempt to distract the audience by changing the subject and straw man is when an argument is constructed in order to be torn apart easily. An example of appeal to pity argument: Please don’t write me up for being late! If I get written up then I lose my job. If I lose my job then I lose my house. If I lose my house then I will lose my family. You don’t want me to be alone right? This type of argument is intended to pull on your heartstrings in a gain pity and have you accept their