Question

name the fallacies?

1.Although the common economic indicators point to a rise in stock prices, I am convinced that the market will most certainly fail. I have a sense for this sort of thing.

2.This Holy Book tells the truth, because it is the word of God, and as it says in the Book, God never lies.

Answer 1

1.This represents the fallacy of Appeal to force or ‘Argumentum ad Bacalum’. This is the case where the speaker is short of rational and logical answering and makes the people believe that something he thinks right is going to happen. In the above situation, all the economic indicators and logical conclusions arrive at a state of rising stock prices, but the writer argues that something else is going to happen just because he/she thinks so. There seems to be no rational or logical way to prove that the belief is true, but just an argument that it will be so.

2.The above statement represents a circular argument or the fallacy of ‘petito pricipii’. When a personal argument is just a repetition of what they already assumed beforehand, it doesn’t arrive at any new conclusion. This is called as the circular reasoning. In the above example, it says that the Holy Book tells the truth a those are the words of the GOD and it is again said that GOD speaks true is something that is also told in the book. This represents repetition of a fact and doesn’t arrive at any particular conclusion. Thus the claim is found to use it’s own conclusion. ‘Petitio princpii’ means ‘Assuming the initial’ which goes as per the definition of the fallacy. It represents a kind of presumptuous argument where it appears only to an argument. It is just restating one’s assumption and looks like an argument. The basic feature is that here the conclusion appears as one of the premise of the argument.