Accident (fallacy)

Information about Accident (fallacy)

The logical fallacy of accident, also called destroying the exception or a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid, is a deductive fallacy occurring in statistical syllogisms (an argument based on a generalization) when an exception to the generalization is ignored. It is one of the thirteen fallacies originally identified by Aristotle. The fallacy occurs when one attempts to apply a general rule to an irrelevant situation.

For instance:
  1. Cutting people with a knife is a crime.
  2. Surgeons cut people with knives.
  3. Surgeons are criminals.


It is easy to construct fallacious arguments by applying general statements to specific incidents that are obviously exceptions.

Generalizations that are weak generally have more exceptions (the number of exceptions to the generalization need not be a minority of cases) and vice versa.

This fallacy may occur when we confuse generalizations ("some") for categorical statements ("always and everywhere"). It may be encouraged when no qualifying words like "some", "many", "rarely" etc. are used to mark the generalization.

For example:

Germans are Nazis


The premise above could be used in an argument concluding that all Germans or current Germans should be held responsible for the crimes of the Nazis. Qualifying the first term:

Some Germans are Nazis


This premise may make it more obvious it is making an (extremely weak) generalization and not a categorical rule.

Related inductive fallacies include: overwhelming exception, hasty generalization. See faulty generalization.

The opposing kind of dicto simpliciter fallacy is the converse accident.

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Informal fallacies
Special pleading • Red herring • Gambler's fallacy and its inverse • Fallacy of distribution (Composition • Division) • Begging the question • Many questions
Correlative-based fallacies:False dilemma (Perfect solution) • Denying the correlative • Suppressed correlative
Deductive fallacies:Accident • Converse accident
Inductive fallacies:Hasty generalization • Overwhelming exception • Biased sample • False analogy • Misleading vividness • Conjunction fallacy
Vagueness and Ambiguity:False precision • Slippery slope • Continuum fallacy
Equivocation:Equivocation • False attribution • Fallacy of quoting out of context • Loki's Wager • No true Scotsman
Questionable cause:Correlation does not imply causation (Cum hoc) • Post hoc • Regression fallacy • Texas sharpshooter • Circular cause and consequence • Wrong direction • Single cause

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A fallacy is a component of an argument that is demonstrably flawed in its logic or form, thus rendering the argument invalid in whole. In logical arguments, fallacies are either formal or informal.
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Deduction can refer to one of the following usages:
  • Deductive reasoning, inference in which the conclusion is of no greater generality than the premises
  • Natural deduction, an approach to proof theory that attempts to provide a formal model of logical reasoning as it

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A statistical syllogism is an inductive syllogism. Statistical syllogisms may use qualifying words like "most", "frequently", "almost never", "rarely", etc., or may have a statistical generalization as one or both of their premises.
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Generalization is a foundational element of logic and human reasoning. Generalization posits the existence of a domain or set of elements, as well as one or more common characteristics shared by those elements. As such, it is the essential basis of all valid deductive inference.
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Aristotle (Greek: Ἀριστοτέλης Aristotélēs) (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great.
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In grammar, a modifier (or qualifier) is a word or sentence element that limits or qualifies another word, a phrase, or a clause. In English, there are two kinds of modifiers: adjectives, which modify nouns and pronouns, and adverbs
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Germans (German: Deutsche) are defined as an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common German culture, citizenship, speaking the German language as a mother tongue and being born in Germany.
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Nazism, National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus), refers primarily to the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers' Party, German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or
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The major term is the predicate term of the conclusion of a categorical syllogism. It appears in the major premise along with the middle term and not the minor term. It is an end term (meaning not the middle term).
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Induction or inductive reasoning, sometimes called inductive logic, is the process of reasoning in which the premises of an argument are believed to support the conclusion but do not ensure it. It is used to ascribe properties or relations to types based on tokens (i.
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An overwhelming exception is a logical fallacy similar to a hasty generalization. It is a generalization which is accurate, but comes with one or more qualifications which eliminate so many cases that what remains is much less impressive than the initial statement might have led
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Hasty Generalization, is a logical fallacy of faulty generalization by reaching an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence. It commonly involves basing a broad conclusion upon the statistics of a survey of a small group that fails to sufficiently represent the whole
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faulty generalization, also known as an inductive fallacy, is any of several errors of inductive inference:

Logic

The proportion PIE of the sample has attribute CAKE.

therefore

The proportion CAKE of the population has attribute PIE.
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a Dicto simpliciter (Latin: "from a maxim without qualification" -- meaning 'from a universal rule') or ad Dictum simpliciter (Latin: "to a maxim without qualification" -- meaning 'to a universal rule') The a
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The logical fallacy of converse accident (also called reverse accident, destroying the exception or a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter) is a deductive fallacy that can occur in a statistical syllogism when an exception to a generalization is wrongly
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An informal fallacy is an argument pattern that is wrong due to a mistake in its reasoning. In contrast to a formal fallacy, the error has to do with issues of rational inference that occur in natural language; which are broader than can be represented by the symbols used in formal
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Special pleading is a form of spurious argumentation where a position in a dispute introduces favorable details or excludes unfavorable details by alleging a need to apply additional considerations without proper criticism of these considerations themselves.
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The gambler's fallacy is a formal fallacy. It is the incorrect belief that the likelihood of a random event can be affected by or predicted from other, independent events.
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The inverse gambler's fallacy is a term coined by philosopher Ian Hacking to refer to a formal fallacy of Bayesian inference which is similar to the better known gambler's fallacy.
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A fallacy of distribution is a logical fallacy occurring when an argument assumes there is no difference between a term in the distributive (referring to every member of a class) and collective (referring to the class itself as a whole) sense.
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A fallacy of composition arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some (or even every) part of the whole.
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A fallacy of division occurs when one reasons logically that something true of a thing must also be true of all or some of its parts.

An example:
  1. A Boeing 747 can fly unaided across the ocean.
  2. A Boeing 747 has jet engines.

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This article or section may be confusing or unclear for some readers.
Please [improve the article] or discuss this issue on the talk page. This article has been tagged since October 2007.
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Many questions, also known as complex question, presupposition, loaded question, "trick question", or plurium interrogationum (Latin, "of many questions"), is an informal fallacy.
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In logic, correlative-based fallacies, also known as fallacies of distraction, are logical fallacies based on correlative conjunctions.

A correlative conjunction is a relationship between two statements where one must be false and the other true.
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false dilemma—also known as false choice, false dichotomy, falsified dilemma, fallacy of the excluded middle, black and white thinking, false correlative, either/or fallacy, and bifurcation
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The perfect solution fallacy is a logical fallacy that occurs when an argument assumes that a perfect solution exists and/or that a solution should be rejected because some part of the problem would still exist after it was implemented.
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The logical fallacy of denying the correlative is an attempt made at introducing alternatives where there are none. In a way, it is the opposite of the false dilemma, which is denying other alternatives.

For example:

Policeman: "..

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The logical fallacy of suppressed correlative is a type of argument which tries to redefine a correlative (two mutually exclusive options) so that one alternative encompasses the other, i.e. making one alternative impossible.
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a Dicto simpliciter (Latin: "from a maxim without qualification" -- meaning 'from a universal rule') or ad Dictum simpliciter (Latin: "to a maxim without qualification" -- meaning 'to a universal rule') The a
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