Definition of Affective Fallacy In simple terms, affective fallacy is when you decide something is good or bad based on how it makes you feel, not on real facts or solid reasons. For example, just because you feel happy when you eat ice cream doesn’t mean it’s good for your health. To look at this fallacy in another way, it’s like thinking a book is the best one ever just because... »
What is an Ad Hominem Fallacy? Simple Definitions An ad hominem fallacy is when someone argues by attacking the person who made a point, instead of addressing the point itself. Imagine that two kids are talking, and one says, “Your idea won’t work because you’re always lying.” They’re not talking about the idea; they’re just calling the other kid a liar. That... »
I. Intro Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz was the definition of a polymath. He was a prolific thinker whose ideas covered not only philosophy but mathematics, physics, biology, politics, medicine, religion, technology, and language. Some historians have dubbed him “the last universal genius” because of the sheer breadth of his thinking. He’s most famous for two things: his optimistic philosophical ou... »
I. Introduction For 2,400 years, Plato’s writings have been interpreted, re-interpreted, debated, and taught as the foundational issues and methods of Western philosophical discourse. Plato studied with, and represented in writing, Socrates, “the wisest man in the world.” He founded what some consider the first institution for higher learning, the Academy, where he taught Aristotle, whose ideas ... »
I. Intro René Descartes was the first modern rationalist, and one of the greatest practitioners of that school of thought. His most important contributions were in the field of mathematics, where he was the first to fuse algebra with geometry, single-handedly inventing the modern field of analytic geometry. This was a revolution in mathematics, and to this day we use a “Cartesian coordinate system... »
I. Intro Immanuel Kant was one of history’s most important philosophers, a broad-minded thinker who reconciled divergent strains of thought and influenced every generation of thinkers to come after him. He’s best remembered for his moral and epistemological ideas (more on that later), but he also set the stage for the rise of psychology, anthropology, and modern neuroscience. The modern scientific... »
I. Intro Aristotle may have been the most influential scientist and philosopher in the western world before Isaac Newton — for about 2,000 years that is — Aristotle’s empirical observations and careful analyses modeled the scientific method for all subsequent scientists. Moreover, his observations, such as in biology, were so extensive that some of them, such as the reproductive arm ... »
I. Definition The Slippery Slope fallacy, also known as the Camel’s Nose, is an argument that assumes that certain, usually extreme, consequences will inevitably occur as a result of one event or condition, based on a chain of cause of effect. The fallacy is usually used to argue against a decision, based on the idea that the decision in question will end up causing a 2nd event in the chain and th... »
I. Definition The Straw Man fallacy, also been called the Aunt Sally argument in Great Britain, creates an illusion, based on erroneous reasoning. A person introducing a “straw man” changes the subject of the original argument in order to distract his or her opponent and argues about the deceptively substituted idea instead of the original point. The new argument is often, although not necessarily... »
I. Definition A Texas sharpshooter fallacy occurs when someone draws conclusions based on only the consistent data – the data points that are similar to each other — ignoring data that may not support the conclusion. This does not allow the data to paint the full picture of what is really going on. This fallacy gets its name from a story in which a Texas shooter fired many bullet holes into ... »