Hello other (possible) intellectuals, I recently had to write a paper for my Philosophy class about the top three fallacies that I use most often and what I would do to avoid them in the future. I'm turning it in tonight, and hoping for the best.

However, I would like to pose the same question to everyone here: what are your top three fallacies that you think you use most often? You may use them and not even know or, heck, maybe you use them on purpose just because its funny and maybe no one notices you using them.

Here are the ones, I feel, I use most often.

1) "Question-Begging Epithet" - my most frequently used logical fallacy. This logical fallacy uses emotionally charged and/or slanted language to prove a point that has not yet been fully proven, and the fallacy I am most guilty of using. I often used this fallacy to make points in my arguments seem stronger than what they really were. The reason I use the question-begging epithet so often is not only because its effectiveness to put a point across in debate, but also because I rarely ever get called out on it.

2) “Appeal to Authority”: my second most frequently used logical fallacy. This type of fallacious reasoning lies in the, improperly, used sources, or authorities, for the topic at hand. I used this fallacy when I felt that my arguments didn't have steady footing in the debate currently in discussion. Often times, my guilty usage of appeal to authority happened when my opponent hadn't provided proof and/or an authority of their own, so I would take the initiative in providing my own, regardless if their field of study wasn't in what the debate was about.

3) “Slippery Slope”: my third most frequently used logical fallacy. The slippery slope fallacy is used when an argument objects to a proposal or a position, not because, it, itself is bad, but because it may lead to a situation that is dangerous. Of course, it may not, but what I would be personally gunning for is that it “might”. Since, more often than not, no one can definitively prove an unproven or theoretical method, I would often disregard their position simply because of what they couldn't prove may happen. This can also be call an appeal to ignorance, but I feel that I used the slippery slope because it can also be used an appeal to fear as well. I could make a baseless claim, ignorance, that would say that if we let this happen then it will lead to harmful outcome, fear. This can also be used vice-versa as well.

These are just little bits of my paper.

One I find people commonly use is the ad hominem logical fallacy, in which you reject an argument based on the person presenting it, not the argument itself.

2311354 Slippery slope is the most common fallacy I guess. Appeal to authority, I believe, is kind of justified in most cases (since 'improperly' is a subjective word in most arguments).

The formal fallacy I fall into most is probably affirming the consequent/denying the antecedent ('if A, then B' doesn't mean that only A causes B or that without A, B would never occur).

I guess moving the goalposts and straw men are my most common informal fallacies. But anything to win a debate I guess

Strawman is the easiest fallacy to commit. It is all but inevitable if you misunderstand your opponents argument.

But I guess the one I most easily commit is the assumption that correlation equals causation.

2311354
I too, tend to question-beg. I also use appeals to emotion much more frequently than I should.

The only one of mine that I'm aware of is... I don't even know how to name it without simply explaining it outright, so:
I seem to believe that constantly putting conditionals in my statements makes me somehow less wrong when those statements are proven false.
Instead of saying "This is X", I will say things like "I think that this is probably X". So if "this" turns out to not actually be "X", case one leaves me befuddled and speechless, while case two still leaves the option of replying with "Yes, well, I never explicitly said it was X with full certainty..."
I'm basically always peppering everything I say with backdoors to let me claim that my own ignorance was either deliberate or already considered in my arguments. So even when I'm wrong, I'm wrong in a more intelligent way than those who affirm things with confidence. (Hint: no I'm not, it changes nothing.)
Unless I'm an idiot who doesn't really understand the concept of a logical fallacy and/or the word "conditional". <<<And I just did it again!