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T. Edward "Ed" Damer (August 16, 1937 - March 21, 2024) was an American philosopher, author, father, and grandfather.
Damer was a professor of philosophy and chair of the Division Visual and Performing Arts at Emory and Henry College in Emory, Virginia. [1] He started on the Emory faculty in 1967 and retired in 2012. [2] In 1991, he won the James A. David Faculty Recognition Award from the Emory alumni in recognition of his teaching. [3]
He is the author of Attacking Faulty Reasoning , a textbook on logical fallacies. The book defines and explains 60 of the most commonly committed fallacies. It also gives specific suggestions about how to address or to "attack" each fallacy when it is encountered. [4] The organization of the fallacies comes from the author's own theories that have accumulated through years of research and study, which defines a fallacy as a violation of one of the five criteria of a good argument.
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In propositional logic, affirming the consequent is a formal fallacy that is committed when, in the context of an indicative conditional statement, it is stated that because the consequent is true, therefore the antecedent is true. It takes on the following form:
Ad hominem, short for argumentum ad hominem, refers to several types of arguments that are fallacious. Often currently this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than the substance of the argument itself. This avoids genuine debate by creating a diversion often using a totally irrelevant, but often highly charged attribute of the opponent's character or background. The most common form of this fallacy is "A" makes a claim of "fact", to which "B" asserts that "A" has a personal trait, quality or physical attribute that is repugnant thereby going off-topic, and hence "B" concludes that "A" has their "fact" wrong – without ever addressing the point of the debate. Many contemporary politicians routinely use ad hominem attacks, some of which can be encapsulated to a derogatory nickname for a political opponent used instead of political argumentation.
A domino effect is the cumulative effect produced when one event sets off a series of similar or related events, a form of chain reaction. The term is an analogy to a falling row of dominoes. It typically refers to a linked sequence of events where the time between successive events is relatively short. The term can be used literally or metaphorically.
Fallacies of definition are the various ways in which definitions can fail to explain terms. The phrase is used to suggest an analogy with an informal fallacy. Definitions may fail to have merit, because they are overly broad, overly narrow, or incomprehensible; or they use obscure or ambiguous language, contain mutually exclusive parts, or are circular.
In logic, equivocation is an informal fallacy resulting from the use of a particular word or expression in multiple senses within an argument.
In a slippery slope argument, a course of action is rejected because the slippery slope advocate believes it will lead to a chain reaction resulting in an undesirable end or ends. The core of the slippery slope argument is that a specific decision under debate is likely to result in unintended consequences. The strength of such an argument depends on whether the small step really is likely to lead to the effect. This is quantified in terms of what is known as the warrant.
A straw man fallacy is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man".
A fallacy is the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning in the construction of an argument that may appear to be well-reasoned if unnoticed. The term was introduced in the Western intellectual tradition by the Aristotelian De Sophisticis Elenchis.
Special pleading is an informal fallacy wherein a person claims an exception to a general or universal principle, but the exception is unjustified. It applies a double standard.
The genetic fallacy is a fallacy of irrelevance in which arguments or information are dismissed or validated based solely on their source of origin rather than their content. In other words, a claim is ignored or given credibility based on its source rather than the claim itself.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc is an informal fallacy that states "Since event Y followed event X, event Y must have been caused by event X." It is a fallacy in which an event is presumed to have been caused by a closely preceding event merely on the grounds of temporal succession. This type of reasoning is fallacious because mere temporal succession does not establish a causal connection. It is often shortened simply to post hoc fallacy. A logical fallacy of the questionable cause variety, it is subtly different from the fallacy cum hoc ergo propter hoc, in which two events occur simultaneously or the chronological ordering is insignificant or unknown. Post hoc is a logical fallacy in which one event seems to be the cause of a later event because it occurred earlier.
The association fallacy is a formal logical fallacy that asserts that properties of one thing must also be properties of another thing if both things belong to the same group. For example, a fallacious arguer may claim that "bears are animals, and bears are dangerous; therefore your dog, which is also an animal, must be dangerous."
Secundum quid is a type of informal fallacy that occurs when the arguer fails to recognize the difference between rules of thumb and categorical propositions, rules that hold true universally.
Trivial objections is an informal logical fallacy where irrelevant and sometimes frivolous objections are made to divert the attention away from the topic that is being discussed. This type of argument is called a "quibble" or "quillet". Trivial objections are a special case of red herring.
An opinion is a judgement, viewpoint, or statement that is not conclusive, as opposed to facts, which are true statements.
Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-free Arguments is a textbook on logical fallacies by T. Edward Damer that has been used for many years in a number of college courses on logic, critical thinking, argumentation, and philosophy. It explains 60 of the most commonly committed fallacies. Each of the fallacies is concisely defined and illustrated with several relevant examples. For each fallacy, the text gives suggestions about how to address or to "attack" the fallacy when it is encountered. The organization of the fallacies comes from the author’s own fallacy theory, which defines a fallacy as a violation of one of the five criteria of a good argument:
Evidence of absence is evidence of any kind that suggests something is missing or that it does not exist. What counts as evidence of absence has been a subject of debate between scientists and philosophers. It is often distinguished from absence of evidence.
Ralph Henry Johnson is a Canadian American philosopher, born in Detroit, Michigan. Johnson has been credited as one of the founding members of the informal logic movement in North America, along with J. Anthony Blair who co-published one of the movement's most influential texts, Logical Self-Defense, with Johnson. Alongside its founder, Blair, Johnson co-directed the Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation, and Rhetoric at the University of Windsor. As Johnson and Blair write in the preface to the newest edition of Logical Self-Defense on the influential nature of the text:
"We might note that the theoretical perspective introduced in Logical Self-Defense has proved quite influential among textbook authors. It is to be found in modified form in A Practical Study of Argument by Trudy Govier, in Attacking Faulty Reasoning by T. Edward Damer, in Logic in Everyday Life and Open Minds and Everyday Reasoning by Zachary Seech, in Thinking Logically by James B. Freeman, and in Good Reasoning Matters by Leo Groarke and Christopher W. Tindale."
The fallacy of accent is a verbal fallacy that reasons from two different vocal readings of the same written words. In English, the fallacy typically relies on prosodic stress, the emphasis given to a word within a phrase, or a phrase within a sentence. The fallacy has also been extended to grammatical ambiguity caused by missing punctuation.