| Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 1,820,543,585 visitors served. |
|
Dictionary/ thesaurus | Medical dictionary | Legal dictionary | Financial dictionary | Acronyms | Idioms | Encyclopedia | Wikipedia encyclopedia | ? |
fallacy |
Also found in: Legal, Wikipedia, Hutchinson | 0.01 sec. |
|
fallacy, in logic, a term used to characterize an invalid argument. Strictly speaking, it refers only to the transition from a set of premises to a conclusion, and is distinguished from falsity, a value attributed to a single statement. The laws of syllogisms were systematically elaborated by Aristotle, and for an argument to be valid, it must adhere to all the laws; to be fallacious, it need only break one (see syllogism syllogism, a mode of argument that forms the core of the body of Western logical thought. Aristotle defined syllogistic logic, and his formulations were thought to be the final word in logic; they underwent only minor revisions in the subsequent 2,200 years. ..... Click the link for more information. ). The term fallacy has come to be used in a somewhat wider sense than the purely formal one. Informal fallacies are said to occur when statements are ambiguous or vague as to the logical form they represent, or when a multiplicity of meaning is present and the validity of the argument depends on switching meanings of a word or a phrase in midstream. fallacy Logic an error in reasoning that renders an argument logically invalid How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
|
| ? Mentioned in | ? References in periodicals archive | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Restore Platform: Most applications require split copies of the data to protect against logical errors. Logical errors aside, however, the question Easterbrook spends so much time pondering doesn't need an entire article to answer, much less an entire book by a professor of philosophy. In fact, classical critics coined many terms to identify the logical errors and verbal evasions that sullied public debate. |
| Encyclopedia |
| Free Tools: |
For surfers:
Free toolbar & extensions |
Word of the Day |
Help
For webmasters: Free content | Linking | Lookup box | Double-click lookup | Partner with us |
|---|