Definition:

 Material fallacy is an error in content rather

than in the structure or consistency of an
argument. What has gone awry is inherent in
the argument’s factual content such as faulty
or defective evidence, abuse of language, or
an appeal to feeling instead of logic.
 One commits the fallacy of accent by shifting
emphasis or punctuation in a statement, thus
altering its meaning as well.
Example:
We don’t have to tell the whole truth, you know (But others do)
We don’t have to tell the whole truth, you know (You only think we do)
We don’t have to tell the whole truth, you know (It’s optional)
We don’t have to tell the whole truth, you know (But we’d better know
it)
We do not have to tell the whole truth, you know (Half truths are
enough)
We do not have to tell the whole truth, you know (Tell myths or
evasions instead)
We do not have to tell the whole truth, you know (But no one else
does)
 A statement which lends itself to confusion
by expressing more than a single meaning
commits the fallacy of amphibology. It is not
that the statement has been abused due to a
misplaced accent, but that a dual or mutual
interpretation is inherent in the argument,
rendering it susceptible to more than one
interpretation, consequently any argument
from which two meanings can be derived
commits this fallacy.
Example:
Aristotle the peripatetic (i.e. the walker) taught
his students walking.
▪ “walking” – is it Aristotle or his Students?
Dogs bathed, flees removed and returned to
your house for $40.
▪ Is it the dog or the flees to be returned to your house?

“Monkey Eating Eagle”

 The fallacy of equivocation is committed
when one used a word containing two
different meanings but gives the impression
that the ambiguous term imparts a single
connotation. Often, but not necessarily an
attempt to deceive is implied.
Examples:
 Can you show me your palm and your
notebook?
 Nothing is more expensive than diamonds.
But paper is expensive than nothing.
Therefore paper is more expensive than
diamonds.
 The ad populum argument is one which shifts
emphasis from the issue under discussion to
an appeal to the populace, that is, to
emotions, prejudices, feelings, and other
factors capable of moving the masses to
agreement.
Example:
 I’m one of your kind; trust me.
 Capital punishment can’t be wrong; 75% of
the people support it.
 Forty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.
 Ad Misericordiam, a variation of the ad
popolum, is the error or by-passing logic and
the point under discussion by appealing to
pity or sympathy.
 Example:
 Officer, I don’t deserve a speeding ticket: my dog
just died, my mother-in-law moved in, and my tax
return is being audited.
 I could not manage to fail sir, my mother is in the
hospital, she is very ill.
 When one fails to debate the logical point at
issue, but appeals instead to prestige, awe,
respect, reverence, etc.
 Example:
 There must be something to astrology; my mother
swears by it.
 “Ferdinand Marcos is not a dictator” “How do you
know that?” “Imelda said so”
 He is an Atenean. Let’s concede.
 “It must be true; I got it right from my philosophy
professor”
 When one shifts his argument from the thesis
under discussion and directs it against the
person of his opponent, he commits the ad
hominem fallacy. This type of argument is
perhaps the most vicious of all fallacies since
it is a direct attack upon the personality of
one’s opponent, an attempt at assassination
of reputation and personality.
Example:
 “Don’t speak about morality, you are a
womanizer and a drunkard!”
 What do you know? You’re only a teenager!
 How could you possibly counsel married
couples? You’ve never been married.
 “You’re preaching is worthless.” “Why?”
“Because you don’t practice what you
preach”
 When one’s argument rest, not upon the
persuasiveness of logic, but on force, he
commits the ad baculum fallacy, the force
appealed to may be overt and obviously
manifest or covert in the form of disguised
coercion. The word baculum literally means club
or rod. When one resorts to force in order to
persuade his opponent, whether he employs
blackmail and other forms of extortion, political
influence, military force, etc., he makes use of
the ad baculum argument.
Example:
 Do or die!
 Before you answer, remember who pays your
salary.
 Chairman of the Board: “All those in favor of
my proposal, say “I agree;” all those opposed,
say “I resign”
Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam

 The English equivalent of the Latin argumentum

ad ignorantiam is “pleading ignorance,” and
constitutes the fallacy of assuming that merely
because one’s opponent is incapable of
disproving a thesis, it is by virtue of the fact
deemed true. The burden of proof always falls on
the person who advances the thesis, not on the
individual who stands in opposition to it. One is
not entitled to conclude that his position is valid
simply on the basis that it cannot be disproved; a
position must be supported by positive
evidence, and is not proved by the absence of it.
Example:
 He cant prove he earned that money, so he
must have stolen it.
 Aristotle? Never heard of him. So he cant ve
important
 His arguments are true, because nobody
refutes it.
 The argumentum ad crumenam literally
means an argument appealing to the purse; in
practice it connotes an argument which
appeals to a person’s interests, particularly
his vested interests.
 Example:
 Stay by my side, defend me, and you will get your
bonus soon.
 My son got 74 in finals professor. How much does
an additional point cost?
 The argumentum ad invidiam is an appeal to
man’s lower passions, his prejudices, his
biases, etc. Human reason is vulnerable to
passion and prejudice; consequently, an
argument which prays upon a person’s
prejudices is one which is readily agreed to;
the logically incredible often makes a person
susceptible to credulity when his passions
and prejudices are involved.
Example:
 Sir, since you’re a drunkard and I failed your
exams, let’s go and drink somewhere.
 I got some collector’s items of Ferrari toy
cars, would you now accept my proposal?
 The argumentum ad captandum or the
argumentum ad captandum vulgus is an
argument designed to please the masses, to
attract the crowds; it is an argument whose
basic attraction is that of pleasing, an
argument directed to please the rabble. Its
strength lies in the argument’s ability to be
winsome to the masses, rather than any
appeal to a coherent set of facts or logical
reasoning.
Example:
 If I assume the position, I will eradicate
poverty, give jobs and houses to the poor,
and be honest to you my dear constituents.
 Believe me, because I have given you all
things that you need in this town.
 Taking a qualified statement and interpreting
it in an unqualified manner, forcing the
statement to apply to its accidental features
(exceptions). To take a general rule and apply
it to its exceptional cases, while giving the
impression that it is not being anomalously
applied, is to commit the fallacy of accident.
Philosophically speaking, accident means non
essential; it is a correlative term used in
opposition to essential.
Example:
 A great nose indicates a great man.
 The medicine must be good for me; it tastes
awful.
 One commits the fallacy of irrelevance by
proving or disproving the wrong point.
Instead of providing A, B is proved; or instead
of disproving C, D is disproved, otherwise the
argument maybe quite intact, consistent and
cogent.
 The non sequitur fallacy is committed when
one’s conclusion does not follow logically
from his premises or when two consecutive
ideas are incongruous or disconnected.
 Example:
 To argue that merely because one thing
precedes another in time, it is therefore the
cause of it, is to commit the post hoc error.
Simply because two events occur in
sequence, a person is not entitled to claim
that the second is a consequence of the first.
Mere temporal sequence does not produce
logical consequence or connection.
 The analogy per se is not necessarily a fallacy
it so regarded only when the situation is not
analogous. An analogy is an argument which
runs along the same logical lines of a second
argument whose truth has already been
accepted; the theory being that if one line of
reasoning is accepted as true then a second
which parallels it logically must also be valid.
 Authority as proof as not challenged, but
rather misplaced authority, that is, using an
expert as an authority outside of his field of
specialization. Usually it is not the authority
who commits this fallacy, but another
individual who cites the authority as proof in
a field in which the authority is not
competent.
 That which is a self contradictory is ipso facto
false; hence to premises which are mutually
contradictory cancel each other out, thereby
rendering any legitimate conclusion
impossible.
 Example:
 To alter fact and then draw conclusion from such
premises is to commit the contrary to fact conditional
error. One is not entitled to arrive at any conclusion
once he has changed the facts; such as an alteration is
tantamount to soaring into the realm of fantasy from
fact, consequently one’s conclusion from unrealistic
premises can be no better or any more than the ‘make
believe’ of which the premises consist. Ones a fact of
the universe has been altered, no licit conclusion is
permissible; actually, the outcome of such a situation
is pure conjecture and equivalent to a guess at best.
 “If I were a boy, I think I could understand
how to feels to love a girl I swear I’ll be a
better man.”
 “Kung ako na lang sana ang iyong minahal di
ka na muling mag-iisa.”
 When an individual attempts a logical
justification of his position or behavior on the
grounds that another person is doing the
same.
 Example:
 One is said to commit the fallacy of ‘circular
reasoning ‘ when offering the original thesis
which was to be proved as final proof; in
other words, that which requires proof is
assumed as its own proof
 Example: