# Fallacy fallacy

*Also called: Argumentum ad logicam*

- **Cluster:** Values and premises — Hidden value claims doing the arguing
- **Page:** https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/fallacy-fallacy/
- **In Arabic:** https://fallacy.wiki/ar/fallacy/fallacy-fallacy.md
- **Licence:** CC BY 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

## What it is

Concluding a claim is false because the argument given for it was flawed.

## In the wild

> Your argument had a fallacy, so your conclusion is false.

## How to answer it

Separate the argument from the claim. A bad argument leaves the claim unproven, not refuted.

## Origin and naming

Catalogued as argumentum ad logicam, 'the argument to logic', and nicknamed the fallacist's fallacy; David Hackett Fischer gave it that name in Historians' Fallacies (1970), and Nigel Warburton lists it as the 'bad reasons fallacy' in Thinking from A to Z. The mistake is to confuse a broken proof with a broken claim.

## More places it shows up

- Her thread argued for the vaccine mandate from a study that turned out to be retracted, so he declared the mandate itself 'debunked' and moved on.
- The defense attorney's closing leaned on an emotional appeal, and the jury decided the client must therefore be guilty.
- A reviewer spots a straw man in the op-ed and dismisses not just the column but the policy it was arguing for.
- Mid-debate, someone calls out a tu quoque and treats the buzzer as a referee's whistle — point scored, position false.

## How to spot it

- The victory lap follows the fallacy call, with nothing further offered against the claim itself.
- The response audits the argument's form and never touches what the claim is about.
- Ask 'so is the conclusion wrong, or just this defense of it?' and watch the speaker conflate the two again.

## Nearby

- [Shifting the burden of proof](https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/burden-shift.md)
- [Ad lapidem](https://fallacy.wiki/fallacy/ad-lapidem.md)

## Read more

- [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_fallacy)
- [Fallacy Files](https://fallacyfiles.org/fallfall.html)

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From fallacy.wiki — a bilingual field guide to 91 logical fallacies, published by phi holdings. Licensed CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/): reuse freely with attribution to fallacy.wiki.