Disinformation and Propaganda Glossary

Petition principii, or begging the question, is a logical fallacy where a claim is supported by a premise that either restates the claim or assumes it to be true. Essentially, it tries to prove a proposition by taking the proposition for granted.

When this fallacy involves only one variable, it is sometimes called hysteron proteron (Greek for 'later earlier'), a rhetorical device. An example is the statement:

'Opium induces sleep because it has a soporific quality.'

The word 'soporific' means 'causing sleep,' so the phrase doesn't actually explain why opium causes sleep. A sentence that properly explains why opium induces sleep might be:

'Opium induces sleep because it contains Morphine-6-glucuronide, which inhibits the brain's pain receptors, causing a pleasurable sensation that eventually leads to sleep.'

This fallacy can occur in a simple statement or through a more complex series of statements that circle back to the original claim, thus 'proving' it without providing any actual evidence.

Question that has a complex presupposition. The presupposition is a proposition that is presumed to be acceptable to the respondent when the question is asked. The respondent becomes committed to this proposition when they give any direct answer. When a presupposition includes an admission of wrongdoing, it is called a "loaded question" and is a form of entrapment in legal trials or debates.

The presupposition is called "complex" if it is a conjunctive proposition, a disjunctive proposition, or a conditional proposition. It could also be another type of proposition that contains some logical connective in a way that makes it have several parts that are component propositions.

X and Y are unrelated questions. When are combined into question Z, will requires a single answer. The Complex Question often is arranged such that whichever way you answer the question, the questioner gains the advantage (i.e. a double bind).

Examples:

1. Have you stopped smoking? ['yes' or 'no' both admits being a smoker]
2. Will you help me and carry this?

Discredit the other person before they speak. Or discredit the topic or argument that they may support.

There are many ways of discrediting the person. Call them names. Talk about their lies. Show them to be unworthy. Tell how they are unintelligent, crazy or otherwise undesirable, inferior and not worth listening to, let alone believing.

To discredit the topic or argument, indicate how it is patently absurd, proven to be false or that only fools would support it.

Examples:

1. Well, Jane will tell you something else, but then she always lived on the other side of the tracks.
2. Mike doesn't have a degree, but he does speak nicely, doesn't he.
3. Only an idiot would consider Didactus to have any useful opinion.
4. Everybody knows that cold fusion is a proven impossibility. Jack: did you have something to say on this.

By discrediting the other person, you are also effectively discrediting anything they say by reducing their authority. If the other person is there, a public attack forces them onto the defensive, socially obliging them to respond first to the attack and hence distracting them from their main argument. If the other person is not there, then they cannot defend themselves.

Personal attack always has its hazards, and other people, especially rescuers, may well leap to their defense.

is an informal fallacy which one commits when one reasons, "Since event Y followed event X, event Y must have been caused by event X." It is a fallacy in which an event is presumed to have been caused by a closely preceding event merely on the grounds of temporal succession. This type of reasoning is fallacious because mere temporal succession does not establish a causal connection.

Examples:

• The man pulled out a gun. A shot was fired. Therefore the man fired the shot.
• You used the telephone and then it stopped working. You broke the phone.

Just because something follows something else, this is not sufficient evidence to prove true cause and effect. This temporal relationship may simply be coincidence.