Fallacy of Division

Both the fallacy of division and its companion, the fallacy of composition, were identified by Aristotle in his 350 BCE work Sophistical Refutations, where he classified them as "verbal fallacies" — errors arising from the way language handles wholes and parts. Aristotle's targets included the pre-Socratic philosopher Anaxagoras, whose doctrine of homoeomeria assumed that since water is wet, its constituent atoms must also be wet. The fallacies were further codified in medieval scholastic logic and remain standard entries in modern informal logic curricula.