What type of fallacy is this?

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	What type of fallacy is this? Every man is mortal. Your mom is mortal. Your mom is a man.
	asked on Wednesday, Aug 04, 2021 10:25:35 PM by
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Answers

Bo Bennett, PhD

fallacy of (the) undistributed middle.

A formal fallacy in a categorical syllogism where the middle term (mortal), or the term that does not appear in the conclusion, is not distributed to the other two terms. For a good explanation of what it means to be distributed, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_proposition#Distributivity

answered on Thursday, Aug 05, 2021 07:54:44 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD

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0	account no longer exists writes: Fallacy: affirming the consequent, perhaps?
	posted on Wednesday, Aug 18, 2021 06:38:32 PM

	0	Bo Bennett, PhD writes: [To Prof M] I didn't see how that fit the logical form. But sometimes we can adjust the language a bit without changing the form. If you can see how this works, let me know.
		[ login to reply ] posted on Thursday, Aug 19, 2021 07:05:08 AM

richard smith

The term "man" is being used as a general term and not specific. Maybe Equivocation.

answered on Thursday, Aug 05, 2021 09:18:53 AM by richard smith

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2	Bo Bennett, PhD writes: Good point... "Man" can be used here as "humanity" in premise 1 and "a man" in the conclusion.
	posted on Thursday, Aug 05, 2021 10:54:13 AM

	1	TrappedPrior (RotE) writes: [To Bo Bennett, PhD] The use of "a man" rather than "man" appears to negate this possibility, but there's still a chance that linguistic confusion is at play here.
		[ login to reply ] posted on Thursday, Aug 05, 2021 05:35:31 PM

What type of fallacy is this?

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