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Philosophy vocabulary · Fallacies

Post hoc fallacy

Meaning in philosophy, with examples

nounCommon term

In philosophy, post hoc fallacy means: A fallacy that assumes that because one event happened after another, the first event must have caused the second.

In Turkish: post hoc safsatası, yanlış nedensellik safsatası

How it is used

Short for post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for 'after this, therefore because of this'. Common in arguments about health, the economy and superstitions. A closely related error is confusing correlation with causation.

Example sentences

  1. I wore my lucky socks and we won, so the socks helped: a textbook post hoc fallacy.

  2. Saying the new rule cut crime just because the drop came afterwards is a post hoc fallacy.

Common collocations

  • post hoc ergo propter hoc
  • commit the post hoc fallacy
  • false cause
  • correlation and causation
  • fallacyA common error in reasoning that makes an argument look convincing even though its premises do not properly support its conclusion.
  • causationThe relation between a cause and its effect, in which one event or state brings about another.
  • hasty generalizationA fallacy of drawing a general conclusion from too few cases or from cases that are not representative.
  • inductionReasoning from observed cases to a general conclusion or a prediction, where the premises make the conclusion likely but not certain.

More terms: Fallacies

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