Informal Fallacies

[based on A Database of Informal Fallacies, copyright 1987 by Dr. Charles Ess.]

The names of logical fallacies organized below are linked to more extensive documents made up of examples of the designated fallacy and (occasionally) explanation and discussion of the fallacy.  These are collected here primarily for student review and consideration.  (Also: some of the links will take you empty pages; I anticipate that these will eventually be filled in.)

Warning! Not every example included here in fact stands as an example of the fallacy!  On the contrary, I have intentionally included an occasional example which may look like the fallacy under consideration, but fails to count as an example of that fallacy for one or more reasons.

Also: remember that fallacies are gregarious, social creatures (which is not to say that gregarious, social creatures are prone to fallacious thinking...) - a given argument may involve more than one fallacy, and so the same argument will sometimes appear in more than one category.

[For additional resources, see:


Fallacies of Relevance:

Ad Hominem                            Ad Hominem Circumstantial

Ad Populum  (appeal to the masses)   Appeal to Tradition (appeal to the past)

Ad Verecundiam (appeal to authority)

Ad Baculum (appeal to force)           Ad Misericordiam (appeal to pity)

Ad Ignorantiam (appeal to ignorance)    Tu Quo ("You're one, too!")

Fallacies of Presumption:
Fallacy of Accident    Hasty Generalization

Biased Statistics      Bifurcation (False dilemma)

Complex Question    Post Hoc, ergo Propter Hoc ("after this, therefore because of this")

Red Herring          Slippery Slope

Additional Fallacies:
Affirming the Consequent   Denying the Antecedent

Questionable Analogy        Invincible Ignorance

Equivocation                 Suppressed Evidence

Begging the Question        Fallacy of Division

Fallacy of Composition      Reductio Ad Adsurdum

Straw Man