Ad hominem, short for argumentum ad hominem, refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious.
An irrelevant conclusion, also known as ignoratio elenchi or missing the point, is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may or may not be logically valid and sound, but fails to address the issue in question. It falls into the broad class of relevance fallacies.
Argument from ignorance, also known as appeal to ignorance, is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false or a proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true. This represents a type of false dichotomy in that it excludes the possibility that there may have been an insufficient investigation to prove that the proposition is either true or false. It also does not allow for the possibility that the answer is unknowable, only knowable in the future, or neither completely true nor completely false. In debates, appealing to ignorance is sometimes an attempt to shift the burden of proof. The term was likely coined by philosopher John Locke in the late 17th century.
The phrase "correlation does not imply causation" refers to the inability to legitimately deduce a cause-and-effect relationship between two events or variables solely on the basis of an observed association or correlation between them. The idea that "correlation implies causation" is an example of a questionable-cause logical fallacy, in which two events occurring together are taken to have established a cause-and-effect relationship. This fallacy is also known by the Latin phrase cum hoc ergo propter hoc. This differs from the fallacy known as post hoc ergo propter hoc, in which an event following another is seen as a necessary consequence of the former event, and from conflation, the errant merging of two events, ideas, databases, etc., into one.
Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to contemplate and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight. Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowledge, self-transcendence and non-attachment, and virtues such as ethics and benevolence.
A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning, or "wrong moves," in the construction of an argument, which may appear stronger than it really is if the fallacy is not spotted. The term was in the Western intellectual tradition introduced in the Aristotelian De Sophisticis Elenchis.
Poisoning the well is a type of informal fallacy where adverse information about a target is preemptively presented to an audience, with the intention of discrediting or ridiculing something that the target person is about to say. Poisoning the well can be a special case of argumentum ad hominem, and the term was first used with this sense by John Henry Newman in his work Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864). The etymology of the phrase lies in well poisoning, an ancient wartime practice of pouring poison into sources of fresh water before an invading army, to diminish the invading army's strength.
An appeal to fear is a fallacy in which a person attempts to create support for an idea by attempting to increase fear towards an alternative. An appeal to fear is related to the broader strategy of fear appeal and is a common tactic in marketing, politics, and media (communication).
Argument from fallacy is the formal fallacy of analyzing an argument and inferring that, since it contains a fallacy, its conclusion must be false. It is also called argument to logic, the fallacy fallacy, the fallacist's fallacy, and the bad reasons fallacy.
Reductio ad Hitlerum, also known as playing the Nazi card, is an attempt to invalidate someone else's position on the basis that the same view was held by Adolf Hitler or the Nazi Party. Arguments can correctly be called reductio ad Hitlerum if they are fallacious. Contrarily, straightforward arguments critiquing fascist components of Nazism like eugenics are not part of the association fallacy.
In economics, a cycle of poverty or poverty trap is caused by self-reinforcing mechanisms that cause poverty, once it exists, to persist unless there is outside intervention. It can persist across generations, and when applied to developing countries, is also known as a development trap.
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias whereby people with low ability, expertise, or experience regarding a certain type of a task or area of knowledge tend to overestimate their ability or knowledge. Some researchers also include in their definition the opposite effect for high performers: their tendency to underestimate their skills.
"Three men make a tiger" is a Chinese proverb or chengyu. "Three men make a tiger" refers to an individual's tendency to accept absurd information as long as it is repeated by enough people. It refers to the idea that if an unfounded premise or urban legend is mentioned and repeated by many individuals, the premise will be erroneously accepted as the truth. This concept is related to communal reinforcement or the fallacy of argumentum ad populum and argumentum ad nauseam.
The moralistic fallacy is the informal fallacy of assuming that an aspect of nature which has socially unpleasant consequences cannot exist. Its typical form is "if X were true, then it would happen that Z!", where Z is a morally, socially or politically undesirable thing. What should be moral is assumed a priori to also be naturally occurring. The moralistic fallacy is sometimes presented as the inverse of the naturalistic fallacy. However, it could be seen as a variation of the very same naturalistic fallacy; the difference between them could be considered pragmatical, depending on the intentions of the person who uses it: naturalistic fallacy if the user wants to justify existing social practices with the argument that they are natural; moralistic fallacy if the user wants to combat existing social practices with the argument of denying that they are natural.
Appeal to the stone, also known as argumentum ad lapidem, is a logical fallacy that dismisses an argument as untrue or absurd. The dismissal is made by stating or reiterating that the argument is absurd, without providing further argumentation. This theory is closely tied to proof by assertion due to the lack of evidence behind the statement and its attempt to persuade without providing any evidence.
Distancing is a concept arising from the work of developmental psychologists Heinz Werner and Bernard Kaplan. Distancing describes the process by which psychologists help a person establish their own individuality through understanding their separateness from everything around them. This understanding of one's identity is considered an essential phase in coming to terms with symbols, which in turn forms the foundation for full cognition and language. Recently, work has been done in psychological distancing in terms of development, personality and behavior.
In argumentation theory, an argumentum ad populum is a fallacious argument which is based on claiming a truth or affirming something is good because the majority thinks so.
An argument from authority, also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam, is a form of argument in which the opinion of an authority on a topic is used as evidence to support an argument. Some consider that it is used in a cogent form if all sides of a discussion agree on the reliability of the authority in the given context, and others consider it to be a fallacy to cite the views of an authority on the discussed topic as a means of supporting an argument.
In logic, an argumentum e contrario, also known as appeal from the contrary, denotes any proposition that is argued to be correct because it is not disproven by a certain case. It is the opposite of the analogy. When analogy is allowed, e contrario is forbidden and vice versa. Arguments e contrario are often used in the legal system as a way to solve problems not currently covered by a certain system of laws. Although it might be used as a logical fallacy, arguments e contrario are not by definition fallacies.
