Informal fallacies

An informal fallacy occurs when the contents of an argument's stated premises fail to adequately support its proposed conclusion.

An argument containing an informal fallacy might employ a valid logical form while nevertheless remaining rationally unpersuasive.

Appeal to the stone

Appeal to the stone is an informal fallacy that consists in dismissing a statement as absurd without giving proof of its absurdity.

Argument from ignorance

Argument from ignorance (from Latin: argumentum ad ignorantiam), also known as appeal to ignorance (in which ignorance represents 'a lack of contrary evidence'), is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false (or vice versa).

Argument from repetition

Argument from repetition, is an argument made repeatedly (possibly by different people) until nobody cares to discuss it any more. The fallacy is also called argumentum ad infinitum ('to infinity'), argumentum ad nauseam and it is an informal fallacy.

Argument from silence

Argument from silence (Latin: argumentum ex silentio) is an informal fallacy that express a conclusion that is based on the absence of statements in historical documents, rather than on presence.

Argument to moderation

Argument to moderation (Latin: argumentum ad temperantiam)—also known as [argument from] middle ground, false compromise, gray fallacy, and the golden mean fallacy—is an informal fallacy which asserts that the truth must be found as a compromise between two opposite positions.

Begging the question

The informal fallacy of petitio principii, or 'begging the question' is committed when someone attempts to prove a proposition based on a premise that itself requires proof.

Burden of proof

Burden of Proof is an informal fallacy in which the burden of proof is placed on the wrong side. When two parties are in a discussion and one makes a claim that the other disputes, the one who makes the claim typically has a burden of proof to justify or substantiate that claim especially when it challenges a perceived status quo.

Circular cause and consequence

Circular cause and consequence is an informal fallacy when the consequence of the phenomenon is said to be an unavoidable cause of the phenomenon when the truth may be otherwise.

Circular reasoning

Circular reasoning is an infromal fallacy in which the proposition is supported by the premises, which is supported by the proposition, creating a circle in reasoning where no useful information is being shared.

Continuum fallacy

The continuum fallacy is an informal fallacy of assuming that the existence of a continuum of possible states between two binary positions means that said positions are not meaningfully different.