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Fallacy

Philosophy
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A fallacy is a deceptive or erroneous argument that appears valid but contains a logical flaw.

Detailed Definition
Poets may employ or expose fallacies to critique ideology, self-deception, or flawed reasoning. Irony, paradox, or dramatic irony often reveal the gap between belief and truth, showing how language can obscure as much as it reveals.
Example
Example in poetry:
Alexander Pope’s "An Essay on Criticism" warns against logical fallacies in poetic judgment; Wallace Stevens’s "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird" avoids the fallacy of a single perspective; Claudia Rankine’s "Citizen" exposes the fallacy of post-racial society through microaggressions; John Ashbery’s "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" plays with fallacies of perception and self-reference; poetic irony often reveals the fallacy of assumed truths, as in W.H. Auden’s "The Unknown Citizen."
Additional Notes
Fallacies in poetry are rarely logical errors but rhetorical strategies—e.g., ad hominem in satire (Pope), false dilemma in dramatic monologue (Browning); students should ask: is the fallacy unintentional (revealing speaker bias) or deliberate (exposing ideology)? Poetic irony often hinges on fallacious reasoning to critique social or personal delusion.
Also Known As
Logical Fallacy Sophism
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