This glossary includes terms for cognitive biases, fallacies and metaphysical beliefs that are used in this book, but that are not terms specific to Middle Way Philosophy because they are also more widely used in psychology and philosophy. My definitions of them may nevertheless offer an unconventional emphasis for practical purposes. A few terms here overlap with those in the glossary of Middle Way Philosophy terms.

For the sake of clarity and to show the relationship between all the cognitive biases, fallacies and metaphysical beliefs in this list, I have given the briefest possible definitions, all in the form ‘assumption that…’. All definitions also make explicit the absolutisation of judgement involved (by using terms such as ‘must’, ‘necessarily’, or ‘absolutely’) and the possibility of an equally flawed opposite wherever relevant.

Absolute idealism Assumption that all phenomena are  ultimately purely mental, this state being progressively disclosed by a dialectical process (opposite: dialectical materialism)

Absolutism (Moral) Assumption that a particular ethical formulation must be universally normative (opposite: relativism)

Action bias Assumption that it is necessarily better (or necessarily worse) to act rather than remain inactive

Actor/ observer bias Assumption that we are not responsible for effects that correlate with our own negative actions (opposite: illusion of control)

Ad hoc argument Assumption of new unrecognised criteria for judgement during the course of an argument

Ad hominem Assumption that claims about a person making an argument must (or must not) be relevant to that argument

Ambiguity aversion Assumption that a claim in which specific terms are ambiguous is unambiguous

Amphiboly aversion Assumption that a claim which is grammatically ambiguous as a whole is unambiguous

Anchoring Assumption that our subjection to ‘anchors’ (unconscious starting points for the formation of belief) is either fully controllable or inevitable

Antinomianism Assumption that no rule can ever be justified (opposite: legalism)

Appeal to authority Assumption that a particular source of authority (person, text etc) absolutely justifies (or absolutely refutes) a claim

Appeal to consequences Assumption that a particular representation of the consequences of believing a claim necessarily make it acceptable or unacceptable

Appeal to envy Assumption that a claim is absolutely justified (or absolutely not) if it fulfils feelings of envy

Appeal to fear Assumption that a claim is absolutely justified (or absolutely not) if its acceptance avoids a feared outcome

Appeal to hatred Assumption that a claim is absolutely justified (or absolutely not) if it fulfils feelings of hatred

Appeal to history Assumption that a claim is absolutely justified (or absolutely not) by an example from the past

Appeal to hope Assumption that a claim is absolutely justified (or absolutely not) if its acceptance brings about a desired outcome

Appeal to humility Assumption that a claim is absolutely justified if it avoids fulfilling feelings of pride

Appeal to ignorance Assumption that a claim must be true because it has not been shown to be untrue

Appeal to pity Assumption that a claim must be true (or must be untrue) because it fulfils feelings of pity

Appeal to popularity Assumption that a claim must be true or false because large numbers of others agree with it

Appeal to present Assumption that present information completely negates past information (or that it does not negate it at all)

Appeal to pride Assumption that a claim must be true because it fulfils feelings of pride

Appeal to tradition Assumption that a claim is absolutely justified (or absolutely not) by continuing group beliefs of the past

Association bias Assumption that an association gives us absolute information about what we encounter

Association fallacy Assumption that because two things share a particular association, they must also be similar (or dissimilar) in other respects

Atheism Assumption that God or gods absolutely do not exist (opposite: theism)

Attentional bias Assumption that the current objects of our attention are the only ones that could be considered (or that they could not be considered)

Attribute substitution Assumption that more difficult problems can be resolved by substituting easier ones in their place (or that absolutely no substitution is possible)

Authority bias Assumption that a particular source of authority provides absolute truth or falsity

Autonomy of facts Assumption of the autonomy of facts from values, regardless of their practical interdependence

Availability bias Assumption that more meaningful events are necessarily more probable (or necessarily more improbable)

Base rate neglect Assumption that a narrower and more mentally available categorisation must be more relevant to probability than a wider and less available one

‘Because’ justification Assumption that the mere form of a justification provides actual justification

Behaviourism Assumption that representations about minds can be completely reduced to those about behaviour (Opposite: cannot be thus reduced – a form of essentialism)

Belief bias Assumption that an argument is justified (or refuted) according to the acceptability (or unacceptability) of the conclusion rather than according to the reasons given

Belief disconfirmation paradigm Assumption that an alternative explanation must be true instead of the disconfirmation of a belief

Black Swan Assumption that unusual events that disconfirm a belief are impossible because they have not been experienced within the limited sphere considered

Casuistry Assumption that decontextualised information about a specific case provides an absolute reason for the application or non-application of a general rule

Causal direction fallacy Assumption that the direction of causation between two events must necessarily go one way when it may go other ways

Cause/ correlation fallacy Assumption that a correlation between two events must necessarily indicate a causal relationship (or the absence of one) between them

Cherry picking Assumption that a selection of some specific pieces of evidence from a wider context must necessarily (or necessarily not) support wider claims about that context

Circular argument Assumption that a claim is proved or disproved by a reason given, even when that reason is itself dependent (or counter-dependent) on the claim being proved

Clustering illusion Assumption that patterns detected in information necessarily indicate (or necessarily do not indicate) general truths about it

Coherentism (sole reliance on) Assumption that a set of beliefs must be true or false because of the coherent relation they have with each other

Compatibilism Assumption that choice can be absolutely reduced to a form compatible with determinism (Opposite: that it cannot – incompatibilism)

Confirmation bias Assumption that observations that appear to confirm (or disconfirm) a belief do so absolutely

Conjunction fallacy Assumption that a (mentally available) conjunction of two conditions is more probable than one of those conditions by itself

Cosmic justice Assumption that the effects of actions must (or must not) reflect justice in the universe by providing moral requital

Decision fatigue Assumption that our judgement remains unaffected (or is absolutely affected) by fatigue from previous decision-making

Deformation Professionelle Assumption that actions that apply our skills and resources must (or must not) be the right ones

Determinism Assumption that all events must be sufficiently caused and theoretically predictable (opposite: indeterminism in general, freewill as regards choice)

Dialectical materialism Assumption that all phenomena are purely physical, this state being progressively disclosed by a dialectical process (opposite: absolute idealism)

Distribution neglect Assumption that a mean figure reflects (or does not reflect) a truth about things represented by that figure, regardless of the distribution of the data drawn on to create the mean

Domain dependence Assumption that general beliefs cannot (or absolutely can) be applied outside a specific habitual domain

Dualism Assumption that an understanding of experience in terms of opposed pairs of metaphysical claims is desirable or unavoidable (assumed by all metaphysical beliefs and thus not subject to a metaphysical opposite – note that monism is not an opposite but a type of dualism in this sense)

Effort justification Assumption that something should necessarily (or necessarily not) be valued more because we have exerted effort in achieving it

Empiricism (metaphysical form) Assumption that claims supported by sense experience must be true, with a priori claims being uninformative (not all empiricists follow this version; opposite: rationalism)

Endowment effect Assumption that an object necessarily gains (or does not gain) value from association with or possession by us.

Envy Assumption that our own position is absolutely negative in comparison to another’s which is positive

Equivocation Assumption that an absolute conclusion can be drawn from reasoning that includes different senses of the same word (or that not even a provisional conclusion can be drawn because of the omnipresence of some degree of equivocation)

Essential androgyny Assumption of some radical feminists that humans are innately free of gendered traits apart from those directly involving reproduction (opposite: essential gender)

Essential gender Assumption that humans have innate gender traits beyond those directly involving reproduction (opposite: essential androgyny)

Essentialism Assumption that the qualities at higher or more complex levels of description must be entirely representationally distinct from those at lower levels, thus irreducible to them (opposite: reductionism)

Etymological fallacy Assumption that the linguistic derivation of a word in the past absolutely dictates (or makes absolutely no contribution to) its meaning in the present

Expressivism Assumption that meaning must be solely based on expressions of the self (opposite: representationalism)

Fake precision Assumption that measurements expressed with precision must (or must not) represent reality

Fallacy of composition Assumption that features of the parts of a thing must also be true of the whole

Fallacy of division Assumption that features of a whole thing must also be true of its parts

Fallacy of the single cause Assumption that an event must have (or must not have) a single cause

False consensus Assumption that the beliefs of the group we participate in must (or must not) be universal

False dichotomy Assumption that the only possible representation of a potential judgement is in terms of two opposed alternatives

Falsification of history Assumption that the past must (or must not) be like the present

Fear of regret Assumption that future regret over an unsuccessful decision must be worse than that over a failure to make a successful one (or vice-versa)

Feature positive effect Assumption that positive features in our environment must be more important than absences (or vice-versa)

Field beliefs Assumption that phenomena must have absolute boundaries (whether in terms of space, time, or conceptual relationships) (opposite: that provisional boundaries must be inadmissible)

Forecast illusion Assumption that forecasts give us true (or false) beliefs about the future

Forer Effect Assumption that vaguely-phrased descriptions must (or must not) refer to oneself

Framing Assumption that the words chosen to describe a particular event necessarily justify a positive or negative response that could be avoided under a different description

Free market Assumption that the mechanisms of the free market will always (or never) have a good effect

Freewill Assumption that a rational self can make choices absolutely free of conditioning (opposite: determinism)

Functionalism Assumption that representations about minds can be completely reduced to a relationship between external input and output (opposite: cannot be thus reduced – a form of essentialism)

Fundamental attribution error Assumption that other individuals must be totally responsible for negative actions, or not at all responsible for positive actions

Gambler’s fallacy Assumption that probabilities of future events must necessarily be modified by recent past events, even when these events have causes that are largely independent each time (also see Inappropriate Bayesianism)

Genetic fallacy Assumption that a claim must be true or false because of its origins

Geometric progression neglect Assumption that series of numbers involving compounded multiplication must progress arithmetically rather than geometrically, with a corresponding under-estimation of the size of the progression

Groupthink Assumption that the maintenance of immediate harmony in a group must be more important than objective enquiry

Growth model Assumption that economic improvement must be understood in terms of economic growth (opposite: that growth cannot contribute to improvement)

Halo effect Assumption that a person possessing some attractive features must (or must not) also possess others for which there is no immediate evidence

Hasty generalisation Assumption that a general claim must (or must not) be applicable to a whole category when it is applicable to a limited number of members of that category

Hedonic treadmill Assumption that the achievement of our desires will (or will not) necessarily make a difference to our long-term happiness

Hedonism Assumption that good must consist in pleasure (opposite: it must not)

Hindsight bias Assumption that our past actions must have been inevitable and thus that we have no responsibility for them (application of determinism)

House-money effect Assumption that valuation is necessarily limited by context (opposite: absolutism)

Idealisation Assumption that an experience must (or must not) absolutely justify a claim made about it

Idealism Assumption that only mental representation (and thus no physical world) must exist (opposite: realism)

Illusion of attention Assumption that we must (or must not) be paying attention to what lies within our field of sensory apprehension

Illusion of control Assumption that we must be responsible for effects that correlate with our positive actions (opposite: actor/ observer bias)

Illusion of skill Assumption that good results correlated with skill must (or must not) be caused by that skill rather than due to chance

Illusory correlation Assumption that distinctive or unusual correlations in a temporal succession must (or must not) be causally related

Impact bias Assumption that future traumas must (or must not) override our ‘immune’ capacity to adjust and normalise them

Inability to close doors Assumption that keeping options open must (or must not) be overridingly beneficial

Inappropriate Bayesianism Assumption that probabilities of future events must necessarily be modified by recent past events, even when these events have causes that are largely independent each time (opposite: that the probabilities should not be modified when the causes are not independent)

Incentive super-response tendency Assumption that desires stimulated by incentives must (or must not) overrule all other contextual values

Indeterminism Assumption that all events must not be sufficiently caused and theoretically predictable (opposite: determinism)

Information bias Assumption that further information will necessarily (or necessarily not) aid the objectivity of judgement

Ingroup bias Assumption that member’s of one’s own group must deserve more (or less) favourable judgement

It’ll get worse before it gets better Assumption that present negative events must (or must not) herald better future ones

Introspection illusion Assumption that certainty can be gained about the self or about a priori truths (whether positively or negatively) through purely ‘internal’ experience of thought

Just world hypothesis see Cosmic Justice

Legalism Assumption that rules or laws reflect absolute and inflexible normative truths (opposite: antinomianism)

Liking bias Assumption that a liking for someone must (or must not) justify more favourable judgements about them

Loss aversion Assumption that losses must be unacceptable, regardless of their extent or relationship to gains elsewhere (opposite: that they must always be acceptable)

Materialism Assumption that everything in the universe must be composed of physical matter with an ultimate solidity (opposite: mind-body dualism or idealism)

Millenarianism Assumption that ultimate full revelation, together with administration of cosmic justice, must occur at a point in the future (opposite: it must not occur)

Mind-body dualism Assumption that both physical and non-physical substance must exist in the universe (opposite: monism)

Monism Assumption that the universe consists in only one type of substance (opposite: mind-body dualism, not dualism in wider sense given above)

Moral absolutism see absolutism (moral)

Moral luck Assumption that people must be (or must not be) entirely responsible for the outcome of their actions, regardless of the degree of chance involved

Moral naturalism Assumption that certain privileged facts must (or must not) be equivalent to correct values, regardless of the general interdependence of facts and values

Motivation crowding Assumption that additional extrinsic motivators will (or will not) necessarily add to people’s motivation, rather than conflicting or detracting from it

Naturalistic Fallacy Assumption that the appeal to certain facts must (or must not) tell us what is universally valuable

Neglect of judgement Assumption that a possible person we encounter must be immediately classified as a person or not, regardless of their incremental qualities

Necessary/ sufficient cause confusion Assumption that a cause that is necessary must (or must not) also be sufficient

Neomania Assumption that a new thing (or person, or concept) must (or must not) be good or true because of its newness

Neglect of probability Assumption that absolute judgements rather than probabilities provide an adequate response to a particular judgement situation (assumed by all metaphysical beliefs, so no opposite)

News illusion Assumption that news must always (or must not ever) be helpfully informative to us (a form of information bias)

Nirvana fallacy Assumption that an imperfect solution to a problem must be unacceptable merely because of its imperfection (assumed by all metaphysical beliefs, so no opposite)

Non-epistemological discounting Assumption that future outcomes must (or must not) be less valuable than immediate ones for reasons other than their greater degree of uncertainty

Omission bias Assumption that omission of a positive act must (or must not) be less blameworthy than negative action, even when they have similar effects

One-sidedness Assumption that an argument must be adequate when it offers evidence only from a restricted sphere, due to conceptual rather than experiential limitations (assumption made by all metaphysical beliefs, so no opposite)

Optimism Assumption of inevitable good events in the future (opposite: pessimism)

Original language fallacy Assumption that texts read in their original language of composition must (or must not) be more true or beneficial than translated texts

Outcome bias Assumption that the causes of past events must (or must not) have been necessary and sufficient, regardless of uncertainty at the time

Overconfidence effect Assumption that our judgement must (or must not) be correct, applied as a distortion of our estimations of confidence in being correct

Paradox of choice Assumption that more choice is always (or never) good, despite the fact that we are often unable to engage with too wide a choice

Passive aggression Assumption that the self is bad and should be an object of aggression

Perfect information Assumption made in economics that people are able to buy and sell in a free market with perfect knowledge of that market

Personification Assumption that those we encounter as individuals must (or must not) be more important than those we do not encounter

Pessimism Assumption of inevitable bad events in the future (opposite: optimism)

Physicalism Assumption that all phenomena (including minds) are reducible to observable objects governed by laws of nature (opposite: idealism)

Planning fallacy Assumption that costs and completion times for a project must (or must not) be as they have been over-optimistically envisaged.

Primacy Effect Assumption that our first impressions of an object should always (or never) guide us more than others

Procrastination Assumption that present desires are always (or never) more important than future goals

Projection Assumption that an object of experience must (or must not) have the features of a particular concept

Range neglect Assumption that a mean figure reflects (or does not reflect) a truth about things represented by that figure, regardless of the range of the data drawn on to create the mean

Rationalism Assumption that a priori claims arrived at through reason alone must be true, and that claims supported by the senses lack this certainty (opposite: empiricism)

Realism Assumption that real objects must exist in an ultimate or essential sense (opposite: idealism)

Recency Effect Assumption that our most recent impressions of an object should always (or never) guide us more than others

Redefinition Fallacy Assumption that we can absolutely justify (or absolutely not justify) a claim by redefining its terms

Reductionism Assumption that the qualities at higher or more complex levels of description can be entirely reduced to ‘true’ descriptions at lower levels (opposite: essentialism)

Regression fallacy Assumption that events must (or must not) have particular identifiable causes that are entirely distinct from the events that would have normally occurred without those causes.

Relativism (Moral) Assumption that incompatible values can be equally well justified in different contexts (opposite: absolutism)

Representationalism Assumption that the meaning of language must be purely cognitive and derived from the way it represents the world (opposite: expressivism)

Revelation Assumption that finite humans must be able to gain certainty from communications of an infinite and perfect God (opposite: that any such claimed communications are absolutely known to be false)

Scarcity error Assumption that the value must (or must not) increase for us in proportion to its scarcity

Scientific naturalism Assumption that all phenomena must be understood in the factual terms of scientific description, and excluding values (largely equivalent to physicalism)

Self-selection bias Assumption that a self-selected sample must (or must not) be representative of a wider category of objects

Self-serving bias Assumption that claims that serve an idea of oneself must (or must not) be correct and those that detract from it must (or must not) be incorrect

Social comparison bias Assumption that judgements about our own worth must (or must not) be made by comparison with others

Social loafing Assumption that we need take no responsibility for a shared enterprise into which the extent of our contribution is vague (opposite: that we must take total responsibility)

Social proof Assumption that the claims of our group must be correct (opposite: that they must be incorrect)

Soft agnosticism Assumption that certainty might be justified about metaphysical claims (especially the existence of God) in the future, regardless of our continuing finite capacities

Sleeper effect Assumption that attempts at persuasion (e.g. advertising) must (or must not) have been unsuccessful when they are consciously rejected

Slippery slope (causal) Assumption that an action that may cause one negative effect will necessarily (or necessarily not) cause further negative effects

Slippery slope (semantic) Assumption that when boundaries are vague a slippage from better to worse interpretations will necessarily (or necessarily not) occur

Special pleading see casuistry

Speciesism Assumption that non-human animals must (or must not) have zero responsibility or moral status

Splitting Assumption of an absolute division between accepted and repressed objects

Status quo bias Assumption that present arrangements or objects must be preferable to possible new ones, regardless of the potential advantages of change (opposite: neomania)

Stereotyping Assumption that certain features must (or must not) apply to certain categories of people

Story bias Assumption that a person’s character must (or must not) fit an unintegrated archetypal projection, regardless of the selectivity of our information about them

Straw man Assumption of the truth of an account of another person’s belief that would be in conflict with theirs, for the purposes of dismissing their claims (opposite: assumption of the falsehood of such an account)

Subjective validation Assumption that two phenomena must (or must not) be related only because our prior assumed theory assumes them to be so

Sunk cost fallacy Assumption that goals must (or must not) be made more valuable by the sacrifices we have already made in pursuing them

Survivorship bias Assumption that the survivors of a competitive process must (or must not) be representative of those who initially engaged in it

Sweeping generalisation Assumption of the truth (or falsehood) of a general claim about a category based only on observation of a limited number of examples in that category

Sympathetic magic Assumption that similarity or contagion between objects, without any other indicators, must (or must not) produce causal effects

Texas sharpshooter fallacy Assumption that evidence of desirable outcomes must (or must not) be found in phenomena that may be random, with the criteria retrospectively defined

Theism Assumption that God or gods must exist (opposite: atheism)

Total responsibility fallacy Assumption that we must be totally responsible for our judgements (opposite: zero responsibility fallacy)

Tu quoque Assumption that a claim made by a person whose actions are inconsistent with that claim must be false

Twaddle tendency Assumption that vague or excessive language must (or must not) be authoritative

Ultimate attribution error Assumption that other groups and their members must be totally responsible for negative actions, or not at all responsible for positive actions

Weak analogy Assumption that an analogy provides absolute (or absolutely no) information about the object of comparison

Winner’s curse Assumption of the absolute worth of a prize that has been won against competition, turned into absolute lack of worth when it is recognised that its value is only incremental

Wishful thinking Assumption that a claim must be true (or false) because we wish it to be so

Zeigarnik Effect Assumption that uncompleted tasks must (or must not) be remembered but not completed ones

Zero responsibility fallacy Assumption that we must have absolutely no responsibility for our judgements (opposite: total responsibility fallacy)