Fallacy of Presumption
Fallacy of presumption is an argument, which is based on one or more arguments that are false and cannot be proved within the context of the argument. This is unique from fallacy of relevance, which may have factual assumptions but make faulty conclusions. Different arguments fall in this category. Common examples include complex questions, circular reasoning, false dichotomies, and arguments from ignorance.
A false dichotomy is also referred to as a false dilemma. This is where you propose two alternatives when only one of them is logically possible. Here, the fallacy of presumption stems from the fact that you deny the existence of other assumptions. For instance, an intellectually irresponsible politician might tell voters his voters to favor tax reforms unless they do not care about the interests of other citizens of the nation. This assumption is not true because one may choose to vote against the reforms believing that a different measure would serve the interest of other citizens in a better way. On the other hand, a complex question usually has one or more false assumptions, which you cannot logically prove. This is closely related to a leading question in which the answer is suggested in the question.
Moreover, circular reasoning also has a different type of the fallacy of presumption. In simple words, this fallacy of assumption denotes that something is accurate because it is accurate. However, real life situations present more complex arguments than this description. For example, someone who loves peace may argue that a soldier is a murderer because he kills people. Here, the basis of the argument is that killing is murder and that everyone who kills people is therefore a murderer. The argument can become circular when you question it using just-war theories.
In sometimes, there is the begging question. A good illustration is the belief that God is real and exists because the bible says so. While this could be the assumption, we are fully aware that the bible is God’s revealed work and thus it is true. In essence, a begging question will arise when you assume important piece of the information. In some cases, one may omit the key information when presenting the argument while in other cases, a slightly different conclusion is made. Thus, the reasoning may become circular depending on the conclusion.
Another form of fallacy of assumption is the suppressed evidence. This occurs when important evidence is left out of the argument. This evidence, if included, would give a different conclusion on the matter. For example may say that no man is likely to go to Mars in the next ten years because no one has done it in the previous ten years. Moreover, equivocation occurs when you make a conclusion because a certain word was in two different senses even though the change in meaning is slight. For example if Ken is a violinist and a violinist is a terrible person then Ken is a terrible individual. Amphiboly is when an ambiguity stems from a faulty interpretation upon which one bases his or her conclusion. The syntactical ambiguity usually arises from either poor grammar or wrong punctuation. This should not be confused with equivocation, which deals with the meaning and not error.
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