We began our discussion of the logical fallacies by grouping them into three broad categories: material fallacies, fallacies of relevance, and verbal fallacies. We have already taken up the material fallacies, or conclusions that are not adequately proven because they contain wrong presuppositions, as well as the fallacies of relevance, those arguments that seek to persuade people to accept evidently nonlogical propositions. This time we will focus on the verbal fallacies, or the false statements or conclusions that result when words are used improperly or ambiguously, whether by ourselves or by other people. They are the fallacies of ambiguity, equivocation, amphiboly, composition, division, and abstraction.

We must keep in mind that the problem with verbal fallacies is not so much faulty logical thinking as the inadvertent or deliberate lack of clarity in language. This generally results from the wrong or slippery use of words, whether spoken or written, and it sometimes happens by accident, as in a slip of the tongue, an error in penmanship, or hitting the wrong key of the word processor. Normally, no great harm is done in such cases. When used deliberately with malice or ill intent, however, these misuses of language can trick or mislead people into making wrong decisions or choices. This is particularly true during major political campaigns, when candidates frenetically engage in all sorts of verbal legerdemain to prop themselves up or demolish their opponents.

Let’s now take up the verbal fallacies one and by one and give illustrative examples of each: 

Ambiguity.The use of undefined words or words whose meaning is vague constitutes an ambiguity. For example, let’s take a look at this campaign slogan of a presidential candidate that’s currently airing on Philippine radio: “Candidate X: Pinili ng Taong Bayan” [Chosen by the People]. These obvious questions arise: What was he chosen for and in what context and in what manner? And who were those people who chose him and how many were they? And even if they chose him, so what? The answers to these questions are perplexing and unclear, thus putting such slogans in the class of verbal fallacies by ambiguity.

Another case of an arresting verbal ambiguity is this slogan of another presidential candidate, currently airing on radio: “Panata Ko—Tapusin Ang Kahirapan!” [My Pledge—Put an End to Poverty!]. It’s a magnificent but vague commitment—and really now, how plausible is it? Precisely how will the candidate end such an intractable sociological problem as poverty? What if the listener happened to be enormously rich—would that promise still apply to him or her? Pledges like this, no matter how well-intentioned, constitute a verbal fallacy by looseness of language.

And here’s a slogan in the TVcommercial of a senatorial candidate: “Gusto Ko, Happy Ka!” [I Want You to Be Happy!]. Sounds arresting and disarmingly candid, but what does it really mean? And how does the candidate’s desire to make you happy relate to his fitness for the position he’s gunning for? The  problem with this slogan lies in its vague, seemingly child-like message, putting it in the class of fallacies by ambiguity.

On a less political note, the fallacy of ambiguity also results when the writer’s definitions of the words he uses don’t match those of the reader’s. Take this newspaper headline: “Helicopter powered by human flies” (“Human-powered helicopter flies” better?). Or this newspaper passage: “The sociologists visited the Tasadays [a supposedly Stone Age tribe in the Philippines, later shown to be of doubtful authenticity] and took photographs of their half-naked women, but they were not properly developed.” (How was that again? Which or what were not properly developed? The women’s bodily features or the exposed photographic negative? Try fixing that sentence in your mind.)

Equivocation.People commit this fallacy when they loosely use a word in more than one sense, yet give the impression that they mean only one. Since they sometimes can’t even differentiate the meanings, they may not even know they are equivocating.

Here are some examples of the fallacy of equivocation:

“All fair things are virtuous. My fiancée is fair; therefore, my fiancée is virtuous.” Here, the word “fair” is being used in two senses: in the first, “impartial and honest,” and in the second, “lovely and pleasing.” Likewise, the word “virtuous” is also being used in two senses: in the first, “righteous and morally upright,” in the second, “chaste.” Both premise and conclusion therefore aren’t valid here, so the statement is actually a verbal fallacy of equivocation.

‘Be Intelligent. Use Iodized Salt Every Day.” This was the slogan of a multisectoral nutrition campaign a few years ago that promoted the regular intake of iodized salt. It’s a catchy slogan, of course, but note that while it uses the word “intelligent” in more than one sense, it gives the impression that only one is meant. In the process, it commits two verbal fallacies in a row—that you can make yourself intelligent simply by an act of will, and that using iodized salt every day will make you intelligent. These are obviously oversimplifications—verbal fallacies, in fact—that are unworthy of serious belief.

Literature, too, has its share of fallacies of equivocation—but largely for the pleasure to be derived from wordplay. In particular, the playwright William Shakespeare was an inveterate punner, one who wasn’t above using words in four different senses all at once. In his play Love’s Labour’s Lost, a character rhapsodizes: “Light, seeking light, doth light of light beguile.” (Here, “light” is used to mean “intellect,” “wisdom,” “eyesight,” and “daylight.”). The Bard of Avon would also willfully mix up the use of verbs, adjectives, and nouns, as when a character says in this line from The Merry Wives of Windsor: “I will description the matter to you.” (Try that in English grammar class and your teacher’s sure to flunk you!)

Amphiboly.This fallacy results from ambiguous or faulty grammatical structures. The error is not with a specific word but with how the words connect or fail to connect. English is particularly susceptible to amphiboly because its vocabulary is so rich and its sentence structures so flexible.

Here are two examples:

“Slow Men At Work” (Without ambiguity: “Slow: Men At Work”). Here, of course, proper punctuation makes all the difference.

“Big Bargain: New highchair for toddler with a missing leg” (Without ambiguity: “Big Bargain: New toddler’s highchair with a missing leg”). Here, we have a misplaced modifying phrase that needed to be relocated to its proper place.

A classic case of amphiboly arises when the adverb “only” is variously positioned in these sentences: “She only wrote that.” “Only she wrote that.” “She wrote only that.” “She wrote that only.” Four possible positions in all! A careless writer could very well chose a position for “only” that makes the statement yield a meaning other than what he or she intended, and that statement would be an amphiboly.

Composition. This is the fallacy of assuming that a group as whole will have the same attributes as the individuals that comprise it. Consider the following examples:

“Atoms have no color. Flowers are made up of atoms.Therefore, flowers have no color.” (What is true of the part is not necessarily true of the whole.)

“The numbers 3 and 5 are both odd. 3 and 5 are parts of 8. Therefore, the number 8 is odd.” (8, of course, is very much an even number!)

“An elephant eats more food than a human; therefore, elephants as a group eat more food than do all the humans in the world.” (We humans grossly outnumber the elephants, so we consume more food than they.)

Division.The converse of the fallacy of composition, this fallacy assumes that the individuals in a group have the same qualities as the group itself. In reality, though, what is true of the whole isn’t necessarily true of its parts.)

“The United States is the world’s richest country; therefore, all Americans must be rich and live very well.” (This simply couldn’t be true, for there are slums in the U.S., too!)

“That rock band is the best our city has; therefore, its members are also the city’s best rock band players.” (For all we know, that band may only have a so-so bass guitarist.)

“The average Filipino family has 3.3 children. The de la Cruzes are a Filipino family. Therefore, the de la Cruzes must have 3.3 children.” (This conclusion obviously doesn’t follow. Apart from the fact that the size of the average family won’t necessarily be equal to the the size of any family among the whole set of families, it’s also an impossibility for a family to have a fractional number of children.)

Abstraction.This fallacy is the classical error of postulating or believing that everything that one comprehends through pure reasoning can actually happen in reality. This is the audacious illogic in the following quote in some inspirational posters: “Everything your mind can conceive, your body can achieve.” Sounds a very desirable possibility indeed, but saying it is actually the height of naiveté or lack of knowledge about the ways of the world.

Another form of the abstraction fallacy is taking a quoted statement out of context. For example, a London newspaper carried a review with this critique of a theatrical performance: “I couldn’t help feeling that, for all the energy, razzmatazz and technical wizardry, the audience had been shortchanged.” The promoters of the stage play then pared this statement down to this blurb in their newspaper advertising: “…having ‘energy, razzmatazz and technical wizardry.’” That, of course, is a fallacy of abstraction that shamelessly distorts the intent and spirit of the original statement.

Politics is often replete with such fallacies of abstraction. Take a look at this slogan of a presidential candidate: “Di pa tapos ang laban, ipagpapatuloy ko” [The fight’s not over yet, I’ll continue it!]. Precisely what fight was that and whose fight was it? Against whom or what? And what’s the point of wanting to continue that fight? And finally, will the voter automatically benefit from that fight being continued by this particular candidate?

The slogan of another presidential candidate also makes use of a similar fallacious abstraction: “Pag May Erap, May Ginhawa” [If There’s Erap, There’s Great Relief]. This, of course, is wordplay using a popular Filipino folk saying, “Kung may hirap, may ginhawa,” where the Tagalog word “hirap” (suffering) has been deftly and ingeniously replaced by the similar-sounding nickname of the candidate. It’s obviously an inspited and memorable slogan, but it can easily be shown to have no bearing with reality at all.   

Indeed, against all the verbal fallacies we have discussed above, vigilance over language—whether those of others or our own—is actually our only sure and effective line of defense. Let’s keep that in mind particularly in this frenzied political campaign season. 

From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, June 25, 2003, © 2003 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. Revised and updated March 5, 2010. All rights reserved.

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Arguments that seek to persuade people to accept evidently non-logical propositions are called the fallacies of relevance. In this form of fallacy, the premises and evidence offered are actually irrelevant to the conclusion, but are couched in language that makes them psychologically or emotionally persuasive. People often have very strong opinions about the issues in this type of fallacy, so they seldom notice that their attention is being diverted from the real issue. On the strength of a finite person’s persuasion alone, fallacies of relevance are often so obviously false that they can hook in only the unwary, the predisposed, and the gullible. But with the growing sophistication of their practitioners in using the modern mass media, particularly television and radio, this form of illogic has developed enough power to break the rational defenses even of the intellectually sophisticated and astute.

The fallacies of relevance had already been identified and catalogued as early as 2,600 years ago during Aristotle’s time, fascinating logicians and charlatans ever since. So widely discussed in philosophical and political circles were they that most of their Latin names became part of the English lexicon.

The 13 most common of them are the fallacies of irrelevance (ignoratio elenchi), personal ridicule (ad hominem), appeal to the people (ad populum), appeal to authority (ad verecundiam), appeal to ignorance (ad ignorantiam), appeal to pity (ad misericordiam), appeal to force (ad baculum), appeal to money (ad crumenam), emotive language, tu quoque, genetic error, anthropomorphism, and non sequitur. We will now look at their anatomy, dissect a few specimens, and show why their kind of reasoning should really not be given any credence.

Fallacies of irrelevance. Better known as ignoratio elenchi (irrelevant conclusion), this broad category covers practically all of the fallacies of relevance. They try to establish the truth of a proposition with arguments that support an entirely different conclusion. Example: “I have been accused of fathering my secretary’s child, but she actually signed an affidavit that the child is actually the fruit of artifical insemination. Therefore, I could not have possibly fathered that child.”

That the woman declared under oath that her child was conceived through artificial insemination would seem to clear the man of wrongdoing. However, it really isn’t conclusive proof that he didn’t father that child. What if the woman, out of love or terror or poverty or charity, is simply trying to protect his reputation? The affidavit—that all-purpose device of law to support truth and falsehood alike—doesn’t really settle the biological and parental aspect of the premises. The only thing it proves is that the woman signed it. (Thankfully, modern science has developed the DNA test to spare us from the dilemma put forth by fallacies of this type.)

Personal ridicule (ad hominem). When one ridicules another instead of directly addressing the premises of his or her argument, one commits the fallacy of personal ridicule: “You wouldn’t believe someone of such low social stature, would you?” “She maybe right about the country’s economic situation, but don’t you remember that she was outrageously wrong twice during the past 10 years?”

Easily the most popular variety of this fallacy is the so-called “straw man,” the tactic of misrepresenting someone’s argument to make it easier to refute. The trick is to distort an aspect of someone’s premises to make it less credible, attack the now distorted position, and then claim that the whole argument has been refuted. As an example, take the following conversation:

Niece to uncle: “Uncle, I’d like to take up mass communications instead of nursing. I think I’m not really cut out for nursing.” Uncle to niece: “You unthinking moron! Mass communications graduates are dime a dozen. Nursing is the most in-demand job abroad these days!”)

Appeal to the people (ad populum). This is the fallacy of using the presumed feelings, actions, and prejudices of the general population to support an invalid argument: “67.8% of our TV texters think that that high official couldn’t be guilty of corruption. He really must be innocent!”

Three insidious varieties of this fallacy are mainstays in product advertising and political campaigns:

• The bandwagon:  “Nine out of every 10 doctors use X toothpaste. It’s high time you did!”
• Appeal to belief:  “All of the people in this town are true believers. You must be the son of the Devil if you aren’t.”
• Appeal to common practice:  “Everybody cheats during elections, so I will not be left behind in my exercise of a legitimate political right.”

Appeal to authority (ad verecundiam). This is the fallacy of supporting dubious or patently false premises with the opinion of a leader, authority, or expert in a field other than the field being discussed: “Our beloved Brother Y got a message from Heaven that M should be our next president. We really have no choice but to vote for M.” It may sound ridiculous, but the danger to modern society is that fanaticism of all stripes almost always makes this kind of fallacy work with people of certain persuasions—especially clueless believers.

Appeal to ignorance (ad ignorantiam). This is the fallacy of assuming that a premise is correct because it cannot be disproved. Here’s its basic form: “There’s no proof that what you say is true; therefore, what you say isn’t true.” The same illogic runs here: “We have no evidence that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, so no intelligent life must exist elsewhere in the universe.”

The same faulty reasoning props up the “guilty until proven innocent” fallacy, in which police authorities make their suspects wear the orange garb of prisoners and allow the broadcast and print media to feast on them. They score media and political points in doing this, of course, but they are actually engaging in a blatant appeal to ignorance. It runs roughshod over the legal presumption that someone is “innocent until proven guilty,” and there’s absolutely no way of erasing the stigma of guilt on those so treated even if they are eventually found innocent of the crime imputed to them. (When suspects are caught in the act or if the evidence of wrongdoing is strong, their detention away from intrusive and prejudicial media exposure is probably a more rational, just, and humane thing to do.)

Appeal to pity (ad misericordiam). Trying to get support for one’s premises not on logical grounds but on compassion is known as the fallacy of appeal to pity. In Philippine parlance this is the “paawa” (“have mercy on me”) effect; elsewhere it is known as the “victim mentality.” This form of illogic marks many court pleadings, as when a defense lawyer asks for leniency towards his self-confessed client: “Your Honor, he may have killed the winning candidate but he is a highly intelligent law graduate whose conviction will forever ruin what could be a most illustrious legal and political career.”

When their academic performance falters, some scholars are also known to resort to this fallacious tack: “Ma’am, if you give me a grade of 2.0 I’ll lose my university scholarship. I’d be forced to stop schooling because my family is dirt poor.” Appeals to pity often work not because they are logically sound but because they tug at our emotions and sense of magnanimity.

Appeal to force (ad baculum). When the usual means of persuasion fail, some people use threat and intimidation to compel others to accept their argument. This is the appeal to force, and it’s the most insidious fallacy of all because it marks the end of civility and the beginning of belligerence: “Park here at your own risk.” “If I hear that line from you again, you better start looking for another job.” “If they convict me in this court case, they will have another ‘People Power’ in their hands.” “Mr. Senator, you have just called me a crook. Say that again without parliamentary immunity and I’ll slap you with a twenty-million-peso libel suit!”

The protection racketeer’s appeal to force is, of course, the most viciously audacious of them all: “You have such nice glass panels in your jewelry boutique, Mr. de la Cruz. My organization sees to it that such nice things remain that way. That’s good for business, and good for us, too. Tomorrow, at 12:00 noon, my man will come here to tell you how little it will cost you.”

Appeal to money (ad crumenam). This is the fallacy of thinking that money is a reliable standard of correctness, and that the more moneyed one is, is more likely one will be right. Passing motorist commenting on a car collision: “That Ford Expedition is obviously not the aggressor because it’s brand-new and much more expensive than that old Beetle, and it was that respectable-looking executive driving it. Look, that careless driver of the Beetle is not even shaven and is only in a dirty undershirt!”

In the so-called appeal to poverty (argumentum ad lazarum), this fallacy works in reverse: “That Ford Expedition is obviously at fault because it’s much sturdier and bigger than that old Beetle. The Expedition’s driver must have bullied the poor Beetle’s driver and raced him to the intersection.” Of course, these are both illogical ways of looking at the situation, for we know that neither greater wealth nor poverty indicates greater good or truth.

Emotive language (argumentum ad populum). This is the fallacy of using emotionally loaded words to establish a claim without proof; the appeal is not to reason and logic but to the beliefs or feeling of the majority of the people towards a particular issue.

One remarkable example of emotive language in history is the response of Spain’s Queen Isabella when Christopher Columbus broached to her the idea that based on his trans-Atlantic voyage, the Earth must be a sphere. She said: “The Earth must be flat. Millions of people know that it is. Are you trying to tell them that they are all mistaken fools?” (Based on modern scientific knowledge, of course, they were!)

As we all know, emotive language is the bread-and-butter stuff of political advertising: “Manuel Villar: Sipag at Tiyaga” (Hard Work and Perseverance), Noynoy Aquino: Hindi Ako Magnanakaw” (I Am Not A Thief), “Gibo Teodoro: Galing at Talino” (Expertise and Intelligence), “Pag May Erap, May Ginhawa” (Where there’s Erap, There’s Great Relief). By using a powerful emotional appeal, each of these political slogans tries to short-circuit logical evaluation of the candidate’s fitness for the Philippine presidency.

Tu quoque (“You also” or “You, too” fallacy). This is the fallacy of demolishing someone’s position by presenting evidence that his or her past actions or beliefs are inconsistent with the position or view he or she is presenting now. A very common example in Philippine elections is this argument: “Your party cheated heavily to win in the last elections, so why is your party advocating honesty now and condemning my party for preparing to do what you did in the coming elections?” It’s the obnoxious tit-for-tat mentality that bedevils supposedly free and democratic elections.

Genetic error. This is a variation of the ad hominem (personal ridicule) fallacy, one that doesn’t necessarily attack the person directly but attacks instead the origins of the position he or she is proposing. This fallacy is termed “genetic” because it’s based on the notion that the original source of an idea is a reliable basis for evaluating its truth or reasonableness.

One example of the genetic error fallacy is this argument: “You believe that that there are measurable differences in IQ among the different human races? You must be a despicable racist then!”

This highly emotional diatribe is invariably raised against scientists who as much as privately and quietly raise such a possibility based on their objective and dispassionate researches. Understandably, people of any race would find such a view so horrid and patently unacceptable, but this belief has no bearing at all on whether such IQ differences do, in fact, exist. Indeed, where an argument comes from is irrelevant in an honest-to-goodness effort to establish logical proof.

Anthropomorphism (pathetic fallacy). This type of fallacy treats animals or inanimate objects as if they had human feelings, thoughts, or sensations. Although using the pathetic fallacy can be a good way to make complex concepts or difficult ideas more easily understood, it can be carried to unreasonable, illogical extremes.

One useful pathetic fallacy is this personification of the behavior of gases: “Air hates to be crowded, and when compressed it will try to escape to an area of lower pressure.” Of course, being an inanimate entity, air is incapable of hating and of trying to escape; it just behaves according to natural law. Still, attributing human traits to air makes its behavior more comprehensible to us.  

Anthropomorphism, however, can take a less useful and odious form: superstition. For example, growing a fortune plant right outside the door of the house is supposed to bring good luck to the homeowner. However, when the fortune plant doesn’t grow well despite being adequately taken care of, it’s the extreme in anthropomorphism to conclude that the fortune plant detests the homeowner and won’t bring good luck to him or her. Conversely, it’s also the extreme in anthropomorphism to believe that when the fortune plant grows robust, it will bring great fortune to the homeowner. In reality, regardless of whether its owner has good or bad luck, the fortune plant will grow largely on its own accord, depending only on the care that it gets.

Non sequitur (Latin for “it doesn’t follow”). In formal logic, a non sequitur is any argument whose conclusion doesn’t follow from its premises. The conclusion may either be true or false, but the fallacy in the argument arises from a disconnect between the premise and the conclusion. Indeed, all of the formal fallacies we have taken up above are special cases of non sequitur.

There’s no need to look far for examples of non sequiturs, for the campaign trail for the 2010 Philippine national elections is littered with them: “Kung Walang Corrupt, Walang Mahirap” (If No One’s Corrupt, No One will Be Poor); “Para sa Mabilis na Pag-aahon” (For Quick Recovery); “Pagbabago Sigurado” (Change for Sure); “Ipagpatuloy ang Magandang Simula” (Let’s Continue Our Beautiful Beginning).

Simple scrutiny of each of these slogans will quickly show that the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premise; in other words, the statement is a fallacy, unrealistic and logically indefensible. Their only legitimate use is as attention-getters—nothing else.

Next: The verbal fallacies

From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, June 13-19, 2003, © 2003 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. Revised and updated February 25, 2010. All rights reserved.

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