The fallacy of four terms (Latin: quaternio terminorum) is the formal fallacy that occurs when a syllogism has four (or more) terms rather than the requisite three. This form of argument is thus invalid.
Read more about Fallacy Of Four Terms: Explanation, Reducing Terms, Classification
Famous quotes containing the words fallacy of, fallacy and/or terms:
“I’m not afraid of facts, I welcome facts but a congeries of facts is not equivalent to an idea. This is the essential fallacy of the so-called “scientific” mind. People who mistake facts for ideas are incomplete thinkers; they are gossips.”
—Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)
“I’m not afraid of facts, I welcome facts but a congeries of facts is not equivalent to an idea. This is the essential fallacy of the so-called “scientific” mind. People who mistake facts for ideas are incomplete thinkers; they are gossips.”
—Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)
“It is not [the toddler’s] job yet to consider other people’s feelings, he has to come to terms with his own first. If he hits you and you hit him back to “show him what it feels like,” you will have given a lesson he is not ready to learn. He will wail as if hitting was a totally new idea to him. He makes no connections between what he did to you and what you then did to him; between your feelings and his own.”
—Penelope Leach (20th century)