Definitions and Examples of Fallacy of Accent and Fallacy of Exclusion

Fallacy is error in reasoning. It is a type of argument that seems to be correct but contains a mistake in reasoning.[footnoteRef:2] According to Collins English Dictionary, fallacy is an idea which many people believe to be true, but which is, in fact, false because it is based on incorrect information or reasoning. Fallacy is bad arguments that follows commonly used pattern as many people think that they have made used good argument. Fallacy is a mistake in an argument that arises from something other than merely false premises. In the same way, fallacy can be defined as a failure to provide adequate proof for a belief, the failure being disguised to make the proof look adequate.

One reason incorrectly when the premises of an argument fail to support its conclusion and argument fails to support its conclusion and as a result arguments may be fallacious. In other words, any mistaken idea or false belief may sometimes be called fallacious. Reasoning is fundamental element to prove validity of logic. Reasoning is evidence while fallacy is related with reasoning. It converts valid reasoning into invalid reasoning. Fallacy is used to justify the truthfulness of logic or reasoning. There are major two reasons for the use of fallacy as people intentionally use fallacy because to persuade other people to win the arguments, to win the debate rather than to find the truth and people without intention use fallacy because they are not aware of the fallacy, they have pseudo knowledge of the content.

Thus, logic provides a ground for acceptance or rejection of some knowledge. Information about fallacies enhances the capacity of persons to reveal the validity of the argument in consideration or question. The aim of logic is to avoid such fallacies so that arguments can establish the truth. There are many types of fallacies.

Explanation

Fallacies of Ambiguity

An informal fallacy caused by a shift or a confusion in the meanings of words or phrases within an argument and these are fallacies of ambiguity –“sophisms” as they are sometimes called and while they are often crude and easily detected, they do at times prove subtle and dangerous. In other word, a fallacy of ambiguity that occurs when an argument contains a premise that relies on one possible emphasis of certain words, but the conclusion relies on a different emphasis that gives those same words different meanings. The five different types are as follows:

1. Equivocation
2. Amphiboly
3. Accent
4. Composition
5. Division

Fallacy of Accent

The accent fallacy is a fallacy of ambiguity due to the different ways a word is emphasized or accented. This is a formal fallacy. The Fallacy of Accent is also known as the fallacy of prosody, misleading accent, Fallacy of Emphasis, is one of the original fallacies described by Aristotle, who pointed out that a word with one spelling could have different pronunciation and different meaning, which effectively created multiple words. Because written Greek had no diacritical marks and the first philosopher to systematically categorize and describe logical errors like this. The accent is the sound which deforms the meaning of the word sometimes.

When a premises relies for its apparent meaning on one possible emphasis, but a conclusion is drawn from it that relies on the meaning of the same words accented differently, the fallacy of accent is committed. Those different meanings could result in a deceptive argument and thus, this fallacy can be serious and in arguments it can be very damaging. For e.g. increase and increase, insult and insult, record and record etc. these pairs of words accented differently mean different part of speech as one member of speech pair is noun, the other is verb and thus, it is unlikely that fallacious argument would arise from those differently accented words. Aristotle’s version of the fallacy of accent allowed only a shift in which syllable is accented within a word.

For e.g. The word ‘court’ can be understand in different ways like assembly of king’s officers or advisers, court of law, or basketball court. Similarly, power can be understand as energy, position or physical strength.

For Example:

• I didn't take the test yesterday. (Somebody else did.)
• I didn't take the test yesterday. (I did not take it.)
• I didn't take the test yesterday. (I did something else with it.)
• I didn't take the test yesterday. (I took a different one.)
• I didn't take the test yesterday. (I took something else.)
• I didn't take the test yesterday. (I took it some other day.)

Accent is the stress placed upon a word in a sentence or a syllable in a word. In Greek, the accent was important for meaning because a written word with one spelling could have more than one pronunciation and meaning, thus creating multiple words. They would be homographs (written the same), but not homophones (sound the same).

An example in English of two words that are homographs but not homophones would be the words invalid (someone who is ill) and invalid (as with a faulty argument). (The bold indicates where the emphasis is placed.) The two are spelled the same, and their meaning is dependent upon how they are pronounced.

Example 1: 'Why are you asking me about Mary's message? I resent her question.'

What is meant by the above passage? In its written form, it could either mean that the writer was upset about the question Mary asked and didn't want to talk about it, or that the question had been sent out again and the speaker is waiting for a reply. The different meanings depend upon where the (spoken) stress is placed in the word 'resent.'

Example 2: 'My spouse must be cheating on me: he told me, 'I don't really love you now.''

In this example, the conclusion depends upon placing the stress on the word you, thus indicating that someone else is loved now. But if we place the stress on other words, like really or love, different shades of meaning could become evident. Perhaps the person has simply grown tired of the relationship, for example.

Example 3: 'I am opposed to taxes which slow economic growth.'

What exactly is she trying to say? Is she opposed to all taxes because they all slow economic growth? Or is she instead only to those taxes that have the effect of slowing economic growth? In writing, this distinction can be made clear with the presence or absence of a comma after 'taxes,' but when spoken, the location of stress in the sentence is what indicates the proper interpretation. If no stress is given, then the speaker is committing the Fallacy of Amphiboly.

However, if the correct stress is ignored or simply lost, then we are looking more at an Accent Fallacy. Thus, we can see that this fallacy is more often committed not by an original speaker or writer, but instead by someone quoting or reporting the words of others.

Example 4: In the movie, My Cousin Vinny, Ralph Maccio's character, Bill, was interrogated for suspected murder. When the police officer asks him, 'when did you shoot the clerk?' Bill replies in shock, 'I shot the clerk? I shot the clerk?' Later in the film, the police officer reads Bill's statement as a confession in court, 'Then he said, 'I shot the clerk. I shot the clerk.''

In the movie, it appeared that the police officer did understand Bill's question as a confession. So it did not appear to be a fallacious tactic of the police officer, rather a failure of critical thought perhaps due to a strong confirmation bias (the officer was very confident that Bill was guilty, thus failed to detect the nuance in the question).

Example 5: In the hilarious Broadway musical, The Book of Mormon, there is a musical number where one character is explaining how to bury 'bad thoughts' by just 'turning them off' (like a light switch). The character doing the explaining (in glorious song) is specifically explaining to the main character how to suppress gay thoughts when the main character's 'bad thoughts' have nothing to do with being gay. After the instructions, the main character tries to make this clear by affirming, 'I'm not having gay thoughts,' to which the other characters respond 'Hurray! It worked!'

The stress on the 'I'm' was ignored and confused for 'Hey, I'm not having gay thoughts anymore!' Although this was comedy it portrayed an argument

Fallacy of Exclusion

Fallacy of exclusion means important evidence which would undermine an inductive argument is excluded from consideration. “In an induction, the total relevant information needs to be examined. Relevant evidence which would undermine an inductive argument is excluded from consideration. The requirement that all relevant information be included is called the “principle of total evidence”. Reality can be so complex that equally valid observations from differing perspectives can appear to be contradictory. In the Fallacy of Exclusion you fail to look at how the given quality is common among many groups, not just to the one. When arguing with someone you purposely leave out important information that would go against the point that you are trying to argue

Examples:

1. Jones is Albertan, and most Albertans vote Tory, so Jones will probably vote Tory. (The information left out is that Jones lives in Edmonton and that most people in Edmonton vote Liberal or N.D.P.)
2. The Leaf will probably win this game because they’ve won nine out of their last ten. (Eight of the Leaf’s wins came over last place teams, and today they are playing the first place team.)
3. 'You shouldn't join a frat because they drink like fish.' Explanation: But so do people in dorms. So do students who live independently off campus. So do most 18-20 year olds, including those who aren't students.
4. 'The police found a dead body with three bullet wounds. It would be a safe, albeit not mathematically certain, conclusion that the person found by the police died because of his gunshot wounds — that is, unless we also knew that the body was missing its head. Although it is still possible that the victim died of gunshot wounds and that the decapitation was inflicted postmortem, it is equally possible that the manner of his death was decapitation and someone administered the bullet wounds postmortem for some other purpose. The fallacy of exclusion forces the decision maker into reaching a false conclusion owing to lack of relevant alternative evidence.

Conclusion

Accent is a form of fallacy through shifting meaning. In this case, the meaning is changed by altering which parts of a statement are emphasized. For example: 'We should not speak ill of our friends' and 'We should not speak ill of our friends' Be particularly wary of this fallacy on the net, where it's easy to misread the emphasis of what's written. Similarly, Fallacy of exclusion means important evidence which would undermine an inductive argument is excluded from consideration. Relevant evidence which would undermine an inductive argument is excluded from consideration. Logic is used to test the validity of reasons.

References

1. Copi, I. M., Cohen, C., & McMahon, K. (2011). Introduction to Logic (14th ed.). Pearson Education.
2. Fischer, D. H., & Foreman, E. (2015). An Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking. W. W. Norton & Company.
3. Govier, T. (2010). A Practical Study of Argument (7th ed.). Cengage Learning.
4. Hurley, P. J. (2015). A Concise Introduction to Logic (13th ed.). Cengage Learning.
5. Walton, D. N., Reed, C., & Macagno, F. (2019). Argumentation Schemes (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.