fallacy of composition
English
Noun
fallacy of composition (plural fallacies of composition)
- A presumption that if something is true of part(s) of a whole, then it is true of the whole itself.
- 1996 March 29, Carroll, Noël, Theorizing the Moving Image, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, OL 2683037W, page 229:
- A theorist who moves from the putative fact that every shot in a given nonfiction film represents a personal point-of-view to the conclusion that every nonfiction film is a personal vision commits the fallacy of composition.
- 2012, “Conclusion: Psychology, Neuroscience, and Economics”, in David K. Levine, editor, Is Behavioral Economics Doomed?: The Ordinary versus the Extraordinary, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, →ISBN, OL 25441080M, page 127:
- There is a small segment of the psychology literature that effectively commits a fallacy of composition, reasoning that if we can explain individual behavior, then this carries over immediately to the group.
- 2013 August 5, Creel, Richard E., Philosophy of Religion: The Basics, Wiley Blackwell:
- The cosmological argument, according to Edwards, commits the fallacy of composition because it assumes that because each part of the universe is caused that therefore the universe as a whole must have a cause, but that doesn't take into account the possibility of an infinite regress of events.
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Antonyms
- fallacy of division
See also
- spotlight fallacy