Fallacy of distribution

A fallacy of distribution is a logical fallacy occurring when an argument assumes there is no difference between a term in the distributive (referring to every member of a class) and collective (referring to the class itself as a whole) sense.

There are exactly two different kinds of this fallacy:

• Composition – assumes what is true of the members is true of the class
• Division – assumes what is true of the class is true of its members

While fallacious, arguments that make these assumptions may be persuasive because of the representativeness heuristic.

Compare

• existential fallacy
• fallacy of the undistributed middle

See also

• ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny