ABSTRACT
A fallacy is a mistake in reasoning. The old logic and rhetoric books discuss a series of mistakes that we might generally call Missing the Point. Here are three examples, with their Latin names:
APPEAL TO PITY (Ad misericordiam)
https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203061350/f5ce7580-7c0c-4392-aeab-0c1bd683fe20/content/fig38_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>A weeping student claims that his mark should be not 30 per cent but 50 per cent, because he will lose his funding if he fails the course.
The point of a mark is to state - truly - how good or bad work is in relation to the standards of the course and to the work of other students. The student's funding is not relevant to this, and a mark loses its point if we pretend that it is. (This does not mean that I might not on a rare occasion use a false mark: I did once, when it was not a question of funds but of the student's being sent back to his native country and shot if he lost his student status. But his true mark was less than the 50 per cent I gave him.)Find another example of missing the point by an appeal to pity.
APPEAL TO FORCE (Ad Baculum - literally 'to the stick')
A terrorist suggests I had better agree his cause is just, because he will blow me up if I don't.
