1

When someone says something like "Corruption cannot be solved if we don't measure the level of corruption." and a person respond to it by not addressing the point made and says "Corruption tend to diminish when countries develop economically." What is that called?

For example:

She completely avoided discussing the point I made, and used a ___.

0

4 Answers 4

4

A non sequitur is a response that has no logical connection to the preceding statement or question, while a red herring is an answer that looks like it's connected, but is intended to distract you away from the real point. You could also say that "she went off on an irrelevant tangent."

3

Depending on the case, this could be a Straw Man:

A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent.

1

Perhaps the irrelevant conclusion fallacy is what you’re looking for: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrelevant_conclusion

1

While I can see how "non sequitur" would apply in the case of the example sentence, "She completely avoided discussing the point I made, and used a ____.", I don't think it works with the rest of the question.

In conversation, "to deflect" is to avoid addressing questions, criticisms, etc. So a "deflection" would be an argument that doesn't address the point.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .