ABSTRACT
The error at issue with what is characterized as "the fallacy of respect neglect" is particularly common among philosophers. It is a prominent instance of the broader "fallacy of illicit amalgamation" that consists in treating as a single uniform unit something that in fact involves a diversified plurality of separate issues. The proliferation of respects becomes critical. And the fallacy of respect neglect arises when this critical consideration is ignored, as it so often is in matters of evaluation. Simplicity has certainly played a prominent role in twentieth-century philosophy of science—especially in methodologically governed discussions of reductive reasoning. Committing the fallacy of respect neglect invites unhappy consequences—confusion if not outright self-contradiction. The fallacy of respect neglect leads to another philosophical pitfall, that of what might be called a desideratum perplex. The fallaciousness of respect neglect roots in the fact that we cannot in general make absolutes out of comparatives.
