星期一, 10月 19, 2009

Fallacies in Writing













These days I prepared the AWA examination. The most difficult thing is to pick out the fallacies in the arguments. I am not good at carping, if needed. Since we always make mistakes, more or less, in our quotidian appeals or talk. It's so hard to avoid such drudgery. Let's see what are the most notorious fallacies in the logic.

The faulty Analogy 時空背景不同的錯誤類比
The Post Hoc Fallacy沒有前因後果的必然關係
The Fallacy of Special or Partial Pleading報喜不報憂
The Hasty Generalization Fallacy(1) The Biased sample fallacy(2) The insufficient sample fallacy取樣不公正取樣不足
The fallacy by default缺席審判二人比賽一人缺席另一人即獲勝
The either-or thinking凡事都是二分法dichotomy
Non Sequitur不一定會遵守前提的推論
Irrational Appeals不合理的訴求
The fallacy of equivocation/ambiquity前提交代不清楚
The accident/converse accident fallacy問題範圍程度不同的推論
The division and composition fallacy分割和合併的錯誤

There is a very famous book devoted to avoid such faults. "Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments," By T Edward Damer.