"Logical fallacies are not the only errors that retard thinking. Conceptual fallacies do, too, and often in subtler, more destructive ways."

"Logical fallacies are not the only errors that retard thinking. Conceptual fallacies do, too, and often in subtler, more destructive ways. ..."[These f]allacies ... include package-deals, anti-concepts, frozen abstractions, floating abstractions, and stolen concepts. Below are definitions and examples of each, along with brief indications of the principles they violate. ...

"The fallacy of package-dealing consists in conceptually combining things that are superficially similar but essentially different and, thus, logically do not belong under the same concept. If and when we commit this fallacy, we muddle our thinking about the subject in question and make clear communication impossible. ... 

    "An extremely common instance of package-dealing is the mental blending of 'majority rule' and 'rights-protecting social system' under the term 'democracy.' ... 'Power' is a[nother] package-deal when used to equate 'economic power' with 'political power.' ...

"An anti-concept is a kind of package-deal, in that it combines ideas that logically don’t belong together. But an anti-concept is different from a regular package-deal, in that it is intended to cause conceptual confusion and harm. As [Ayn] Rand defines it, an anti-concept is an unnecessary and rationally unusable term intended to replace and obliterate some legitimate concept(s) in people’s minds. ...

    "The alleged meaning of 'social justice' [for example] is 'the moral imperative of treating people fairly with respect to various social matters.' Its actual meaning is 'the moral imperative of coercively redistributing wealth and forcing individuals and institutions to act against their judgment for the sake of various groups whose individual members allegedly can’t think or live on their own.' In other words, 'social justice' is the soft bigotry of low expectations—fused with the hard coercion of a government gun.
    "The purpose of the anti-concept of 'social justice' is to obliterate the concept of actual justice in people’s minds. And, when people accept the phrase as legitimate and try to use it, that is what it does. ...

"The fallacy of freezing an abstraction consists in making a false equation by substituting a particular conceptual concrete for the wider abstract class to which it belongs. Like a package-deal, it involves integrating concepts in disregard of the need for crucial distinctions.
    "[Ayn] Rand’s seminal example of this fallacy is the equating of 'morality' with 'altruism' by substituting a particular morality (the morality of self-sacrifice) for the whole, general class 'morality.' ...

"Conceptual knowledge is hierarchical. Higher-level concepts, such as mammal, animal, mile, and tyranny, presuppose and depend on lower-level concepts, all the way down to first-level concepts, whose referents are at the perceptual level, such as dog, bird, inch, and force (e.g., a punch in the face). In order to know what a mammal is, you must first understand a chain of more basic concepts, including fertilization, reproduction, animal, and various kinds of animals (e.g., cats, dogs, birds, fish). Without this more basic knowledge, the concept of mammal wouldn’t and couldn’t have meaning in your mind.
    "This principle of hierarchy applies to all conceptual knowledge. Higher-level (more abstract) concepts can be understood and have meaning in someone’s mind only to the extent that he grasps the lower-level (more basic) concepts that give rise to them. And there are essentially two ways people can violate this principle: via floating abstractions and via stolen concepts. 

    "When someone uses a word or phrase that is not supported in his mind by a structure of more basic ideas that are ultimately grounded in perceptual facts, he is using a floating abstraction—an abstraction disconnected from reality in his mind, disconnected from the things the idea refers to, disconnected from the facts that give 't meaning.
    "For example: 'Everyone has a right to a living wage.' If someone uses the word 'right' this way, he doesn’t know what a right is. He doesn’t know what the concept means, what it refers to in reality. He doesn’t know the facts that give rise to our need for the concept. (Or, if he does, he is committing a more grievous fallacy; see concept-stealing below.) ... 'America is a democracy.' If someone thinks or says such a thing, he doesn’t know what “democracy” means (see “democracy” as a package-deal above). The term is a floating abstraction in his mind. 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.' If someone chants such nonsense, he has no idea what 'free' means. The term is a floating abstraction in his mind.
    "Floating abstractions abound. Be on the lookout for them in your own mind and in the claims of others. ...

"Now, if someone goes beyond merely using a concept that is disconnected from reality and uses a concept while denying or ignoring more basic, lower-level concepts on which it logically depends, he is committing the fallacy of concept-stealing.
    "Here, as with floating abstractions, the operative principle is the hierarchical nature of conceptual knowledge. Higher-level, more abstract knowledge is built on lower-level, more basic knowledge, all the way down to sensory perception, our direct cognitive contact with reality. Concept-stealing consists in using a higher-level concept while denying or ignoring a lower-level concept(s) on which it depends for its meaning.

    "Examples: ... When someone claims that an experiment has shown that determinism is true—that all human action is antecedently necessitated by forces beyond our control—he steals the concepts of 'experiment' and 'true.' ... When someone claims the senses are invalid, he steals the concept of 'invalid.' (Invalid, in this context, means 'incapable of delivering knowledge of reality.') ....

    "Stolen concepts are rampant in philosophic discussions. And they not only cause confusion; they also make way for much mischief and lead people to waste ungodly amounts of time pondering and debating things that don’t exist, don’t make sense, or don’t matter. Be on the lookout for them. ...

"Keeping your thinking connected to reality is essential to success in reality. And that’s the only kind of success there can be."

~ Craig Biddle from his post 'Conceptual Fallacies and How to Avoid Them'