Abstraction denial
Occurs when someone denies the reality or causal relevance of a higher-level pattern just because the pattern is realized through lower-level parts.
Conceptual
Foundational
Middle school+
Family
Conceptual/Framing Fallacy
The claim is distorted by bad categories, rigid framing, or confused conceptual boundaries.
Abstraction fallacy
Occurs when a model, law, or abstraction drawn from experience is treated as if it were a logically necessary rule that reality cannot ever depart from.
Conceptual
Foundational
Middle school+
All or nothing fallacy
Occurs when support for part of a view, or problems with part of a view, are treated as if they force total acceptance or total rejection of the whole package.
EpistemicEvidential
Intermediate
High school
Artificial negation
Occurs when the wording of a negative position is manipulated so that mere non-belief is treated as if it were the same thing as a strong positive denial.
EpistemicEvidential
Intermediate
High school
Continuum fallacy
Occurs when a claim is rejected simply because the concept involved has blurry boundaries rather than a perfectly sharp cutoff.
ConceptualLinguistic
Intermediate
High school
Denying a remote hypothetical
Occurs when a hypothetical test case is dismissed as irrelevant merely because it is rare, extreme, or unlikely, even though the principle under debate is supposed to be...
EvidentialConceptual
Foundational
Middle school+
Denying the correlative
Occurs when one side of a genuine contrast is denied or redefined so the opposing term has no place to apply.
Conceptual
Intermediate
High school
Fallacy of necessity
Occurs when a condition that is necessary given someone's current description is treated as if it were permanently or universally necessary in the real world.
LinguisticConceptual
Intermediate
High school
False dilemma
Occurs when someone presents a limited set of options as if they were the only live possibilities, while reasonable alternatives are ignored or suppressed.
Conceptual
Foundational
Middle school+
For the sake of argument denial
Occurs when a hypothetical premise is rejected simply because the speaker does not actually believe it.
ConceptualEpistemic
Intermediate
High school
Historian's fallacy
Occurs when people in the past are judged as if they had the same information, background assumptions, and hindsight available to later observers.
Perspectival
Intermediate
High school
Human standard fallacy
Occurs when a human classification, rule, or label is treated as if it automatically determined the underlying fact or moral status.
ConceptualPerspectival
Intermediate
High school
Is-ought problem
Occurs when a descriptive claim about what is common, natural, or actual is treated as if it directly established what ought to be done.
Conceptual
Foundational
Middle school+
Naturalistic fallacy
Occurs when something is treated as good, safe, or morally preferable mainly because it is called natural, traditional, or closer to nature.
ConceptualEvidential
Foundational
Middle school+
Overwhelming exception
Occurs when a general principle is padded with so many exceptions that it no longer guides action or says much of substance.
LinguisticConceptual
Advanced
Intro college
Package-deal fallacy
Occurs when traits that are often bundled together by stereotype, tradition, or habit are treated as if they must always come as a package.
Conceptual
Foundational
Middle school+
Pathetic fallacy
Occurs when human feelings, intentions, or judgments are projected onto impersonal things and then treated as if the projection explained reality.
ConceptualPerspectival
Advanced
Intro college
Psychologist's fallacy
Occurs when someone projects their own motives, fears, or mental structure onto others and treats that projection as insight into those other people.
Perspectival
Intermediate
High school
Reification
Occurs when an abstraction is spoken of as if it were a concrete agent or thing in a way that misleads rather than merely using harmless metaphor.
ConceptualLinguisticPerspectival
Intermediate
High school