An irrelevant conclusion, also known as or missing the point, is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument whose conclusion fails to address the issue in question. It falls into the broad class of relevance fallacies.
Samuel Johnson's unique "refutation" of Bishop Berkeley's immaterialism, his claim that matter did not actually exist but only seemed to exist, has been described as ignoratio elenchi: during a conversation with Boswell, Johnson powerfully kicked a nearby stone and proclaimed of Berkeley's theory, "I refute it thus!" (See also argumentum ad lapidem.)
A related concept is that of the red herring, which is a deliberate attempt to divert a process of enquiry by changing the subject. Ignoratio elenchi is sometimes confused with straw man argument. The translation in English of the Latin expression has varied somewhat. Hamblin proposed "misconception of refutation" or "ignorance of refutation" as a literal translation,
See also
- Ad hominem
- Begging the question
- Chewbacca defense
- Enthymeme
- Evasion (ethics)
- Genetic fallacy
- List of fallacies
- Non sequitur (logic)
- Sophism
- Tone policing
References
Works cited
External links
- Appeal to Authority Breakdown, Examples, Definitions, & More
- Nizkor Project: Red Herring
- Fallacy Files: Red Herring
- The Phrase Finder: Red Herring
- The Art of Controversy: Diversion (bilingual with the original German) by Arthur Schopenhauer
- Red herring in political speech
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