Association fallacy

Short description: Formal fallacy

For the informal fallacy that applies a rule beyond its scope, see Philosophy:Accident (fallacy).

The association fallacy is a formal fallacy that asserts that properties of one thing must also be properties of another thing if both things belong to the same group. For example, a fallacious arguer may claim that "bears are animals, and bears are dangerous; therefore your dog, which is also an animal, must be dangerous."

When it is an attempt to win favor by exploiting the audience's preexisting spite or disdain for something else, it is called guilt by association or an appeal to spite (Latin: argumentum ad odium).[1] Guilt by association can be a component of ad hominem arguments which attack the speaker rather than addressing the claims, but they are a distinct class of fallacious argument, and both are able to exist independently of the other.

## Contents

* 1 Formal version
* 2 Guilt by association
* 2.1 Examples
* 3 Variations
* 4 See also
* 5 Footnotes
* 6 References
* 7 Further reading
* 8 External links

## Formal version

An Euler diagram illustrating the association fallacy

Using the language of set theory, the formal fallacy can be written as follows:

Premise
A is in set S1
Premise
A is in set S2
Premise
B is also in set S2
Conclusion
Therefore, B is in set S1.

In the notation of first-order logic, this type of fallacy can be expressed as (∃x ∈ S : φ(x)) ⇒ (∀x ∈ S : φ(x)).

The fallacy in the argument can be illustrated through the use of an Euler diagram: A satisfies the requirement that it is part of both sets S1 and S2, but representing this as an Euler diagram makes it clear that B could be in S2 but not S1.

## Guilt by association

This form of the argument is as follows:

* Group A makes a particular claim.
* Group B, which is currently viewed negatively by some, makes the same claim as Group A.
* Therefore, Group A is viewed as associated with Group B, and is now also viewed negatively.

An example of this fallacy would be "My opponent for office just received an endorsement from the Puppy Haters Association. Is that the sort of person you would want to vote for?"

### Examples

Some syllogistic examples of guilt by association:

* John is a Con artist. John has black hair. Therefore, people with black hair are necessarily Con artists.
* Lyle is a crooked salesman. Lyle proposes a monorail. Therefore, the proposed monorail is necessarily a folly.
* Country X is a dangerous country. Country X has a national postal service. Therefore, countries with national postal services are necessarily dangerous.
* Simon and Karl live in Nashville, and they are both petty criminals. Jill lives in Nashville; therefore, Jill is necessarily a petty criminal.

Guilt by association can sometimes also be a type of ad hominem, if the argument attacks a person because of the similarity between the views of someone making an argument and other proponents of the argument.[2][3]

## Variations

A form of the association fallacy often used by those denying a well-established scientific or historical proposition is the so-called Galileo gambit or Galileo fallacy.[4][5] The argument runs thus: Galileo was ridiculed in his time for his scientific observations, but was later acknowledged to be right; the proponent argues that since their non-mainstream views are provoking ridicule and rejection from other scientists, they will later be recognized as correct, like Galileo.[6] The gambit is flawed in that being ridiculed does not necessarily correlate with being right and that many people who have been ridiculed in history were, in fact, wrong.[4][7] Similarly, Carl Sagan noted that people laughed at such geniuses as Christopher Columbus[lower-alpha 1] and the Wright brothers, but "they also laughed at Bozo the Clown".[9][10]

## See also

* Fallacy of composition - Fallacy of inferring on the whole from a part
* Goomba fallacy - Related fallacy in which conflicting opinions of separate members of communities are taken for opinions a single member could conceivably harbor, even if doing so would not make sense at all
* Philosophy:Jumping to conclusions - Psychological term
* Philosophy:Nine familial exterminations - Capital punishment in premodern East Asia
* Social:Presumption of guilt - Presumption that a person is guilty of a crime
* Social:Propaganda techniques - Methods of mind manipulation, often based on logical fallacies
* Philosophy:Reductio ad Hitlerum - Logical fallacy
* Social:Scapegoating
* Philosophy:Sippenhaft - German term for shared family responsibility
* Social:Social stigma - Type of discrimination or disapproval
* Philosophy:Stereotype

## Footnotes

1. ↑ The idea that Columbus proved that the Earth is spherical to his contemporaries is a historical misconception;[8] see Myth of the flat Earth.

## References

1. ↑ Curtis, G. N.. "Emotional Appeal". http://www.fallacyfiles.org/emotiona.html. "Appeal to Hatred (AKA, Argumentum ad Odium)"
2. ↑ Labossiere, Michael C. (12 June 2014). "Fallacy: Guilt By Association". http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/guilt-by-association.html.
3. ↑ Damer, T. Edward (21 February 2008). "6: Fallacies that Violate the Relevance Criterion". Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments (6th ed.). Cengage Learning. p. 112. ISBN 978-1-111-79919-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=kAFtCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA112.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Collins, Loren (30 October 2012). Bullspotting: Finding Facts in the Age of Misinformation. Prometheus Books. pp. 27–28. ISBN 978-1-61614-635-1. https://books.google.com/books?id=8gXvP3MCAqcC&pg=PT27.
5. ↑ Johnson, David Kyle (2018-05-09), Arp, Robert; Barbone, Steven; Bruce, Michael, eds., "Galileo Gambit" (in en), Bad Arguments (Wiley): pp. 152–156, doi:10.1002/9781119165811.ch27, ISBN 978-1-119-16578-1, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781119165811.ch27, retrieved 2024-02-03
6. ↑ Amsden, Brian. "Recognizing Microstructural Fallacies". pp. 22. http://www.indiana.edu/~c228/Fallacies.pdf.
7. ↑ Gorski, David (28 March 2005). "The Galileo Gambit". http://oracknows.blogspot.com/2005/03/galileo-gambit.html.
8. ↑ Dear, I. C. B.; Kemp, Peter, eds (2007-01-01). "Columbus, Christopher" (in en). The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780199205684.001.0001/acref-9780199205684-e-633. ISBN 978-0-19-920568-4. https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199205684.001.0001/acref-9780199205684-e-633. Retrieved 2024-11-17.
9. ↑ Shapiro, Fred R. (2006). The Yale Book of Quotations. Yale University Press. pp. 660. ISBN 9780300107982. https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780300107982/page/660.
10. ↑ Sagan, Carl (1979). Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science. Random House. p. 64. ISBN 9780394501697. https://archive.org/details/brocasbrainrefle00sagarich.

## Further reading

* Hansen, Hans V.; Pinto, Robert C., eds (1995). Fallacies: Classical and Contemporary Readings. Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-01417-2.
* Bibliography on Fallacies

## External links

* The Fallacy Files at Guilt by Association
* "Transfer technique" at Propagandacritic.com
* "Testimonial" at Propagandacritic.com

* v
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Fallacies (list)

Formal|

| In propositional logic|

* Affirming a disjunct
* Affirming the consequent
* Denying the antecedent
* Argument from fallacy

|

In quantificational logic|

* Existential
* Illicit conversion
* Proof by example
* Quantifier shift

Syllogistic fallacy|

* Affirmative conclusion from a negative premise
* Exclusive premises
* Existential
* Necessity
* Four terms
* Illicit major
* Illicit minor
* Negative conclusion from affirmative premises
* Undistributed middle

* Masked man
* Mathematical fallacy

Informal|

| Equivocation|

* Equivocation
* False equivalence
* False attribution
* Quoting out of context
* Loki's Wager
* No true Scotsman
* Reification

|

Question-begging fallacies|

* Circular reasoning / Begging the question
* Loaded language
* Leading question
* Compound question / Loaded question / Complex question
* No true Scotsman

Correlative-based fallacies|

* False dilemma
* Perfect solution
* Denying the correlative
* Suppressed correlative

Illicit transference|

* Composition
* Division
* Ecological

Secundum quid
(ignoring qualifications)|

* Accident
* Converse accident

Faulty generalization|

* Anecdotal evidence
* Sampling bias
* Cherry picking
* McNamara
* Base rate / Conjunction
* Double counting
* False analogy
* Slothful induction
* Overwhelming exception

Vagueness / Ambiguity|

* Accent
* Syntactic ambiguity
* Continuum
* Sorites paradox
* False precision
* Moving the goalposts
* Slippery slope
* Quoting out of context

Questionable cause|

* Animistic
* Furtive
* Correlation implies causation
* Cum hoc
* Post hoc
* Gambler's
* Inverse
* Regression
* Single cause
* Slippery slope
* Texas sharpshooter

Fallacies of relevance|

| Appeals to emotion|

* Fear
* Flattery
* Novelty
* Pity
* Ridicule
* Think of the children
* In-group favoritism
* Invented here / Not invented here
* Island mentality
* Loyalty
* Parade of horribles
* Spite
* Stirring symbols
* Wisdom of repugnance

|

Genetic fallacies|

| Ad hominem|

* Abusive
* Association
* Reductio ad Hitlerum
* Godwin's law
* Reductio ad Stalinum
* Circumstantial
* Appeal to motive
* Bulverism
* Poisoning the well
* Tone
* Tu quoque
* Whataboutism

|

* Authority
* Accomplishment
* Ipse dixit
* Poverty / Wealth
* Etymology
* Nature
* Tradition / Novelty
* Chronological snobbery

Appeals to consequences|

* Argumentum ad baculum
* Wishful thinking

* Ad nauseam
* Argument to moderation
* Argumentum ad populum
* Appeal to the stone / Proof by assertion
* Ignoratio elenchi
* Argument from silence
* Invincible ignorance
* Moralistic / Naturalistic
* Motte-and-bailey fallacy
* Rationalization
* Red herring
* Appeal to worse problems
* Two wrongs make a right
* Special pleading
* Straw man
* Cliché
* I'm entitled to my opinion

* Categories
* Fallacies
* Formal fallacies
* Informal fallacies
* List
* Philosophy portal

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