Logically Fallacious Resources
Critical thinking starts with spotting reasoning errors
Critical thinking is not about winning arguments. It is about testing whether the reasons given actually support the conclusion being offered.
Ask better questions
What is the conclusion? What evidence is offered? Does the evidence support that conclusion, or did the argument shift to emotion, popularity, fear, or personal attack?
Use fallacies carefully
Fallacy labels should clarify reasoning, not replace it. Explain the problem in the argument before treating the label as decisive.
Related fallacies
See all fallaciesArgument from Fallacy
Concluding that the truth value of an argument is false based on the fact that the argument contains a fallacy.
Magical Thinking
Making causal connections or correlations between two events not based on logic or evidence, but primarily based on superstition. Magical thinking often causes one to experience irrational fear of performing certain acts or having certain thoughts because they assume a correlation with their acts and threatening calamities.
Post Hoc
Claiming that because event Y followed event X, event Y must have been caused by event X, without properly establishing causality.
Appeal to Emotion
This is the general category of many fallacies that use emotion in place of reason in order to attempt to win the argument. It is a type of manipulation used in place of valid logic.
Ad Hominem (Abusive)
Attacking the person making the argument, rather than the argument itself, when the attack on the person is completely irrelevant to the argument the person is making.
Slippery Slope
When a relatively insignificant first event is suggested to lead to a more significant event, which in turn leads to a more significant event, and so on, until some ultimate, significant event is reached, where the connection of each event is not only unwarranted but with each step it becomes more and more improbable. Many events are usually present in this fallacy, but only two are actually required -- usually connected by “the next thing you know...”