1.

Affirmative Conclusion on Negative Premise

The fallacy of Negative Premises is committed when one arrives at a positive

conclusion, with a negative premise.1 This fallacy causes a wrong conclusion. Let’s look
at the example.

No people under the age of 66 are senior citizens.

No senior citizens are children.

Therefore, all people under the age of 66 are children.

In this case, the premise is a categorical syllogism where it has double negative
premises and the conclusion is positive.

2. Antecedent Negation/ Denying the Antecedent

This fallacy happens in syllogism hypothesis which affirms antecedent in the

making of conclusion. People should check the conclusion of the premise because
sometimes it is not happening in the reality. For example;

If the teacher is smart, then the pupil is smart.

In fact, the teacher is not smart.

So, the pupil is not smart.

From this example, we can see that the conclusion says that the pupil is not
smart. But, in reality, the intelligence of a pupil is not based on the teacher’s cleverness,
yet the pupil could be smarter than the teacher.

1
Rod Hollier, http://www.thelawproject.com.au/blog/the-fallacy-of-negative-premises-and-5-cases-that-failed
3. Disjunction Fallacy

This fallacy usually comes from thinking the choices are alternatives, rather than
members of the same set. When people judge that the disjunctive estimate is higher
than one of the constituent and is lower than the other constituent, they commit the
single disjunction fallacy.2 When people judge that the disjunctive estimate is lower than
both of the constituents, they commit the double disjunction fallacy. The fallacy is further
aggravated by priming the audience with information leading them to choose the
subcategory as the more probable alternative.3 For instance;

These bones belong to a rat or a rodent.

These bones belong to a rat.
Therefore, these bones do not belong to a rodent.4

This example is clearly in error, because a rat is, in fact, a rodent. The “or” in this
case must be inclusive.

4. Affirming the Consequent

Affirming the Consequent is the name of an in particular conditional argument

form. The fallacy happens when there is an error in formal logic where if the consequent
is said to be true, the antecedent is said to be true, as a result.5 Let’s take a look at the
example.

2
Yong Lu, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4967104/

3
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/79/Disjunction-Fallacy

4
http://www.philosophy-index.com/logic/fallacies/affirming-disjunct.php

5
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/14/Affirming-the-Consequent
People who are pretty in Korea went to the plastic surgery.

This person went to a plastic surgery in Korea.

Therefore, this person is pretty.

The form of this syllogism is an error because, in fact, not all people who had a
plastic surgery in Korea became pretty, yet the plastic surgery may be failed. Another
example;

If I have the flu then I’ll have a fever.

I have a fever.
Therefore, I have the flu.

Here we’re affirming that the consequent is true and the antecedent is also true.
But, the conclusion doesn’t have to be true. Lots of different illnesses may cause a
fever, so from the fact that you’ve got a fever there’s no guarantee that you’ve got the
flu.