1) Fallacies are called “informal” because they are applicable to all kinds of reasoning, no matter what the particular form of the reasoning (inductive or deductive).

2) The literal Latin translation of argumentum ad verecundiam is:

3) According to Dr. Peikoff: In most cases where you rely on experts, you cannot claim to be absolutely certain that what he is saying is true.

4) If you have never been to China, then you are committing verecundiam to accept the existence of China because you’ve never been there.

5) The attempt to use “prestige jargon” to intimidate others into accepting one’s view is an indirect form of verecundiam.

6) Argumentum ad baculum is also known as: 

7) Argumentum ad hominem is also known as: 

8) Tu quoque means: 

9) When someone tries to refute someone’s belief, not by showing that it is objectively false, but by appealing to another (contradictory) belief of held by that same individual, he is committing:  

10) Identify the fallacy: “I can’t bear to believe there will be a dictatorship in America, therefore there won’t be one”  

11) Fill in the blank: The classic example of the _______________ fallacy is, the rabble-rouser or the demagogue, who tries to inflame his audience’s emotions by playing on their prejudices, whipping them up into a frenzy, counting on them to abandon logic and thought and argument, in the heat of the unleashed passions of the moment.

12) Identify the name of this fallacy: An employee asks for a raise, not on the grounds of the quality of his work, the value of his product, factual considerations of that kind, but because he has three children that depend on him, they all have polio, and his mother-in-law was just run over.

13) It is impossible to disprove an arbitrary assertion that something exists.

14) This fallacy claims: because you cannot disprove an arbitrary positive; it must be true.

15) ____________ is the fallacy of using or assuming the point you are trying to prove as part of your proof.

16) Identify the name of this fallacy: Your arguments against Red China’s system of government are completely worthless, because you haven’t even been there. 

17) Identify the name of this fallacy:

Long hair is superior to short hair, as proved by the consensus of distinguished youth leaders.

How do you determine who is a distinguished youth leader?

That’s easy. They all have long hair.

18) Identify the name of this fallacy: Until you are omniscient about yourself, you cannot know for sure whether or not some part of your motivation, presently unknown to you, is basically evil. For the present, you have no proof on this point either way. You must, therefore admit that it is possible that you are, to some extent, basically evil. 

19) Identify the name of this fallacy: My friends, the only cure for the present energy crisis is the nationalization of all oil and coal companies. Once and for all, we must put an end to the diabolical conspiracy of the profit-mad, power-lusting vultures of Big Business. Don’t let the tycoons warp their slimy tentacles around our nation’s economy, and squeeze it dry for their own aggrandizement. Don’t let them sink their blood-drenched claws into the helpless, exposed flesh of the American people. 

20) Identify the name of this fallacy: “Every person acts at every moment to achieve the maximum personal pleasure. That is the sole human motivation.”
“What about Mr. X? He just went into the desert for 10 years to mortify the flesh and lie on a bed of nails.” 
“That’s no argument against me. That’s his way of achieving personal pleasure.”
“How do you know that that’s his way of achieving pleasure?”
“Well, it’ s obvious. After all, every person acts at every moment to achieve the maximum personal pleasure. That is the sole human motivation.”

21) Identify the four sub-forms of Petitio Principii covered by Dr. Peikoff: 

22) Paradox is simply another term for a contradiction.

23) The belief in God synonymous with mysticism.

24) Dr. Peikoff claims that if your senses are not completely, 100% valid, then you have no basis whatever in which to say that you are conscious of anything.

25) Dr. Peikoff makes no distinction between proof and validation.

1) According to Dr. Peikoff, the Existentialist-Zen Buddhist-Orientalist axis of philosophy regards logic as useless, subjective, a product of linguistic conventions.

2) Dr. Peikoff offers two reasons why people require logic:

3) Every consciousness, regardless of its means or form of awareness, must be capable of error.

4) Identify the meaning and the author of the following quote: “credo quia absurdum”

5) Who said the following? “At a mass meeting, thought is eliminated. And because this is the state of mind I require, because it secures to me the best sounding board for my speeches, I order everyone to attend the meetings, where they become part of the mass, whether they like it or not. I mingle with people. I speak to them only as the mass.”

6) Objectivism agrees with the “non-ontological” theory of logic.

7) The Law of Contradiction states:

8) Thinking, according to Objectivism, is:

9) The Law of Excluded Middle states:

10) Dr. Peikoff defines proof as follows: the process of deriving a conclusion from antecedently known truths, by reference to and on the basis of the laws of logic.

11) According to Dr. Peikoff, what is the opposite of proof?

12) Dr. Peikoff names two false philosophic doctrines that represent a direct attack on logic:

13) Dr. Peikoff defines mysticism as follows:

14) According to Dr. Peikoff, mysticism actually implies determinism.

15) Dr. Peikoff states: mysticism is to epistemology what amorality is to ethics.

16) According to Dr. Peikoff, even science requires a sacred text.

17) Dr. Peikoff maintains: Mysticism is essentially a metaphysical doctrine.

18) Dr. Peikoff holds: Subjectivism is an epistemological doctrine.

19) Identify the fallacy of using a concept, while ignoring or denying one or more basic concepts on which it depends:

20) He will say, “It is true—for me, for you, for him, for her, for it, for us, for them, for the Middle Ages, for the 19th Century, for Americans,” etc., but he will always say “true for.”

21) One cannot prove the Law of Identity.

22) Reaffirmation through Denial is a technique devised by Aristotle that proves the laws of logic.

23) There are two fundamental types of reasoning (two fundamental types of inference):

24) Is logic an art or a science?

25) According to Dr. Peikoff, Objectivism is entirely opposed to what is today called “symbolic logic.”

1) By the very nature of the viewpoint, there are some positions in which no matter what the context or ignorance of the person, to accept that viewpoint is necessarily dishonest. [p.352]

2) Dr. Peikoff believes that, in general, philosophers up to Kant were dominantly honest, albeit mistaken. [p.353]

3) Dr. Peikoff provides a nonexhaustive list (divided up into three subdivisions) that will define if a person is dishonest simply from what he says. Identify the statement that is not part of that list: [p.352 – 354]

4) Dr. Peikoff claims that the intelligence of a particular individual is an irrelevant factor to consider when forming a judgement of that individual. [p.356]

5) According to Dr. Peikoff, when we judge a person’s context, we’re trying to discover what he could have grasped if he tried. [p.358]

6) Honesty involves two different kinds of factors: the objective evidence available to the person, and the ability of his consciousness to process it correctly. [p.359]

7) According to Dr. Peikoff, the dependent person (the intellectual second hander) is necessarily dishonest. [p.363]

8) Dr. Peikoff claims that an occasional noncharacteristic evasion is not good; but it is not damning. [p.364]

9) Dr. Peikoff holds that every advocate of modern art is dishonest. [p.366]

10) Dr. Peikoff claims that the following is clear evidence of dishonesty: The equation of religion with morality as such and the view that the only alternative to religion is rejecting all moral standards. [p.369]

11) Dr. Peikoff claims that you cannot condemn a welfare statist as dishonest per se. [p.370]

12) Dr. Peikoff claims that philosophy, and unfortunately Objectivism in particular, will bring you into perpetual conflict with the outside world or with other people, that it will lead to an attitude of perpetual condemnation, malevolence, bitterness. [p.370]

13) Dr. Peikoff holds that maybe centuries from now, we will have Atlantis and happiness, but here and now, people are rotten, there is no hope, enjoyment of the world is treason, and suffering is one’s destiny. [p.371]

14) According to Dr. Peikoff: What kind of error could lead people to exaggerate the evil in the world, to focus only on the negative, the corrupt, the irrational? [p.372]

15) According to Dr. Peikoff: The corollary of the rationalist in thought and the repressor in feeling is the misanthrope in relation to people. [p.372]

16) Dr. Peikoff suggests that one should look for the good in everyone. [p.374]

17) If it (whatever you’re judging) isn’t essentially good, then it has to be essentially evil. [p.374]

18) According to Dr. Peikoff, the proper interpretation of the principle “you must not sanction evil,” leads to a perpetual fight with everyone on everything, such as: bitter arguments at the drop of a hat with your boss, your professor, etc. [p.375]

19) The principle “you must not sanction evil” applies only in specific situations. [p.375]

20) Dr. Peikoff claims: There is no objective implication if you are employed by someone, that you agree with him about everything except what you explicitly denounce. [p.376]

1) Objectivism advocates reality above ideas. [p.271]

2) Objectivism says ideas are the means of knowing reality. [p.271]

3) According to Dr. Peikoff, the validity of induction is not an unresolved issue. [p.276]

4) In the process of making a inductive leap, Dr. Peikoff identifies two points in order achieve a proper generalization: [p.277]

5) Because our inductions are not rationalist dogmas, revelations expressive of omniscience, Objectivism therefore agrees with empiricism, that our inductions are uncertain. [p.282]

6) Direct perception is not the only self-evident starting point. Self-evidency also applies conceptually. [p.283]

7) There is no context for a true axiom. [p.285]

8) Dr. Peikoff maintains that a rationalist would probably need psychotherapy, if he is a really deep rationalist. [p.297]

9) According to Dr. Peikoff, in order to formulate the philosophy Objectivism, one only needs to be intellectually honest. [p.302]

10) The reason that intrinsicists end up preaching selflessness is because of the Christian influence; it comes only from the Bible. [p.310]

11) According to Dr. Peikoff, morality is _____________ . [p.313]

12) According to Objectivism, ethics is a permanent struggle against temptation. [p.315]

13) Dr. Peikoff clams that rationalism, philosophically, leads to and supports emotionalism. [p.316]

14) According to Dr. Peikoff, since emotions come from your value judgments, they necessarily reveal your basic values, your subconscious self, and your basic character. [p.319-319]

15) It is essential to the Objectivist approach that emotions cannot be judged morally, neither as good nor evil. [p.319]

16) Fill in the blank: According to Dr. Peikoff, emotions are to value judgments or to thought as _____________ [p.322]

17) Dr. Peikoff provides an incomplete list of some of the functions of emotions. Identify the statement that is not listed: [p.324-329]

18) Dr. Peikoff maintains that there is no way to choose among legitimate options, except by reference to feelings. [p.330]

19) Dr. Peikoff states the following: In regard to friendship, it’s not possible to for an Objectivist to feel very friendly and warm toward an “outsider” or “heretic.” [p.335]

20) Dr. Peikoff maintains: One cannot have a tragic sense of life and still be one hundred percent honest, rational, and moral. [p.343]

21) Identify the following: The idea that on any level, in thought or action, that people cannot function without a purpose that brings them pleasure, something they want to achieve, that they enjoy achieving. [p.325]

22) According to Dr. Peikoff: Repression is to emotions what asceticism is to the body. [p.323]

23) Dr. Peikoff asserts: Empiricism, philosophically, leads to and supports repression. [p.316]

24) Dr. Peikoff states that he neither challenges nor endorses the possibility that repression could be a precondition of rationalism. [p.316]

25) Dr. Peikoff claims the following: To Say “Good morning” to a priest is a sanction of evil. [p.343-344]