Word list · 16 words
Words that explain arguments
Arguments tend to go wrong in a few familiar ways: someone answers a weaker version of what you said, changes the subject, or keeps defending a position because of what they have already put into it. These words name those moves, along with the three means of persuasion Aristotle described: the speaker's character (ethos), the listener's emotions (pathos) and the argument itself (logos).
Naming a fallacy does not win an argument, and calling everything a fallacy is a bad habit of its own. Use the entries to see what is happening, then answer the point that was actually made.
Kept on this device only, for the daily recall in My words.
The words
Straw Man
A straw man is a debating move: you swap your opponent's real argument for a weaker, distorted version — one that's easier to knock down — and then attack that instead, as if you'd beaten the…
Logical Fallacies & Rhetoric
Red Herring
A red herring is a detail planted to pull attention away from what actually matters — and its famous origin story may itself be a fabrication.
Literary & Rhetorical
Godwin's Law
As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison to Nazis or Hitler approaches one.
Internet & Digital Culture
Poe's Law
Without an explicit signal of humour, no parody of an extreme position is safe from being mistaken for the real thing.
Internet & Digital Culture
Sunk Cost Fallacy
The sunk cost fallacy is the pull to keep spending money, time or effort on something because of what you've already put in — even when none of it can be recovered and stopping would leave you…
Cognitive Biases & the Mind
Gambler's Fallacy
The gambler's fallacy is the mistaken belief that a run of one outcome in a truly random process makes the opposite outcome 'due' on the next try.
Cognitive Biases & the Mind
Hot Hand Fallacy
The hot hand fallacy is the supposed error of believing a performer on a streak is temporarily more likely to succeed next — a label that a landmark 2018 correction showed rested on flawed…
Cognitive Biases & the Mind
Fundamental Attribution Error
The fundamental attribution error is explaining other people's behaviour by their character while underweighting the situation they were actually in.
Cognitive Biases & the Mind
False Consensus Effect
The false consensus effect is overestimating how many other people share your opinions, preferences and choices.
Cognitive Biases & the Mind
Dunning-Kruger Effect
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people who know the least about something tend to overestimate how much they know — because the very skill needed to spot their mistakes is the…
Cognitive Biases & the Mind
Ultracrepidarian
An ultracrepidarian is someone who confidently gives opinions on subjects they know nothing about.
Rare & Beautiful English
Cognitive Dissonance
Cognitive dissonance is the discomfort you feel when two of your beliefs conflict — or when what you did doesn't match who you think you are — and the pressure that discomfort creates to make the…
Psychology & Relationship Dynamics
Apophasis
Saying something by declaring that you will not say it — I won't mention his convictions, I'm not going to bring up what happened last year.
Literary & Rhetorical
Ethos
The characteristic spirit and values of a person, culture or institution.
Philosophy & Ways of Living
Pathos
In Aristotle's Rhetoric, pathos is persuasion achieved by putting the audience into a particular emotional state.
Philosophy & Ways of Living
Logos
Logos is Greek for word, account, reason or ratio — used both for the rational order of the cosmos and, in rhetoric, for persuasion through the argument itself.
Philosophy & Ways of Living