1. Religion & Spirituality
emotion, appeal to
<Back to Last Page >     <Glossary Index>

 Related Terms
• philosophy
• 
fallacy

 

Definition: An appeal to emotion is an informal fallacy in which an argument attempts to get one to accept or reject a claim by referring to strong positive or negative emotions.

Also Known As: none

Alternate Spellings: none

Common Misspellings: none

Related Resources:

What is an Argument?
It helps to know what, exactly, an argument is before you can critique one and tell what is wrong with it. Sometimes, people say they are making arguments when they are not!

How do you critique an argument?
Assuming that we have established that we have an actual argument, the next step is to examine it for validity. There are two points on which an argument might fail: its premises or its inferences.

<Back to Last Page>     <Glossary Index>

Discuss in my forum

©2012 About.com. All rights reserved.

A part of The New York Times Company.