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Philosophy vocabulary · Fallacies

Hasty generalization

Meaning in philosophy, with examples

nounCommon term

In philosophy, hasty generalization means: A fallacy of drawing a general conclusion from too few cases or from cases that are not representative.

In Turkish: aceleci genelleme, hatalı genelleme

How it is used

A failure of inductive reasoning that often lies behind stereotypes and anecdotes. A typical comment on an essay: 'Two examples are not enough; this is a hasty generalization.' British spelling: generalisation.

Example sentences

  1. My two neighbors from that city are rude, so everyone there is rude: that's a hasty generalization.

  2. With a sample of only twelve students, the study is open to the charge of hasty generalization.

Common collocations

  • make a hasty generalization
  • small sample
  • unrepresentative sample
  • sweeping generalization
  • inductionReasoning from observed cases to a general conclusion or a prediction, where the premises make the conclusion likely but not certain.
  • fallacyA common error in reasoning that makes an argument look convincing even though its premises do not properly support its conclusion.
  • post hoc fallacyA fallacy that assumes that because one event happened after another, the first event must have caused the second.
  • counterexampleA particular case showing that a general claim or definition is false, or an example with true premises and a false conclusion showing that an argument form is invalid.

More terms: Fallacies

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