Composition fallacy is a logical fallacy where an element is used to describe a larger class of things it belongs to. It occurs when an aspect of a part is expanded to describe the whole. This can be overgeneralization or an unsupported extension of ideas.
A composition fallacy is a type of fallacy or logical fallacy in which an element is used to describe a larger class of things of which that element is a part. There are essentially two ways this error can occur. One way is when aspects of a thing are considered to apply equally to a group to which that thing belongs. Another way is when an aspect of a part of a larger thing is expanded to describe the whole thing.
The basic concept behind a composition error is in the unsupported extension of ideas or aspects of a thing to a larger population or object of which that thing is a part. This kind of extension isn’t always fallacious, however, since there are cases where something true for an item in a group or a part of an object is true for that whole group or object. The error occurs when the extension is done without information that supports the idea that the extension is valid.
One of the simplest ways a composition error can occur is when a person or thing that is part of a group is used to represent the entire group. This can be thought of as an overgeneralization to a particular group, although it can occur in a more subtle way. For example, someone may see that a rich person is male, so all rich people must be male, which is fallacious. This type of misstatement can refer to many different aspects of people and groups, although it’s not always false. For example, a full-size jet costs more to build than a wooden toy jet, and it’s true that all full-size jets cost more to build than wooden toy jets.
The other common form of mistyped occurs when an aspect of part of something is used to describe the whole thing. An example of this fallacy would be that the cells that make up a person are invisible to the human eye, so the whole person must be invisible to the human eye. This is, of course, fallacious, as the invisibility of cells does not extend to the person or thing that is made up of those cells. Just like the other type of composition error, however, there are cases where this is true, such as that all the bricks in a wall are solid matter, so the wall is solid matter.
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