CONTENTS
TITLE
INTRODUCTION
PART I: MATERIAL FALLACIES
TROUBLE WITH PROPOSITIONS
- Faulty Generalizations
- Hasty Generalization
- Unrepresentative Generalization
- Faulty Causal Generalization
- Assuming the Cause: "post hoc reasoning"
- Faulty Analogy
- Composition and Division
- The All-or-Nothing Mistake
- The False Dilemmas
TROUBLE WITH CONSTRUCTIONS
- Faulty Classifications
- Non-exhaustive Classifiication (Rule l)
- Non-exclusive Classification (Rule 2)
- Misconceptions about Classifiication (Rule 3)
- Reifications
- Relativism
- Unnecessary Vagueness (Rule 4)
- Over-precision
- Word Magic
PART II PSYCHOLOGICAL FALLACIES
EMOTIONAL COLORATION
- Emotive Language: "colored words"
- Ceremony or Setting: "pomp and circumstance"
MISUSING AUTHORITY
- Appeal to Authority: "Ipse dixit" or He says so!
- Appeal to Tradition or Faith: "tried and true"
- Impressing by Large Numbers: "get on the band wagon"
STIRRING UP PREJUDICE
- Popular Passions: "ad populum appeals"
- Damning the Origin: "consider the source"
- Personal Attacks: "ad hominem"
- Forestalling Disagreement
- Creating Misgivings: "where there's srnoke, there's fire"
RATIONALIZATION AND LIP SERVICE
- Self-righteousness
- Finding the "Good" Reason
- Wishful Thinking
- Special Pleading: waving it both ways"
- Lip Service
BIASED MISCONSTRUCTIONS
- Apriorism: "Invincible Ignorance"
- Personification
- Cultural Bias
- The Gambler's Mistake
DIVERSIONS
- Humor and Ridicule: "lost in the laugh"
- Demand for Special Consideration
- Clamorous Insistence on Irrelevancies: "red herring,"
- Pointing to Another Wrong
- The Wicked Alternative
- Nothing but Objections
- Impossible Conditions: "the call for perfection"
- Abandomnent of Discussion
PART III LOGICAL FALLACIES
LOGICAL TRUTH
VALIDITY
- The Undistributed Middle Terrn
- Suppressed Quantification
- False Conversion of Propositions
- Non Sequitur
- Trouble with Conditionals and Alternatives
- Ambiguous Terms
- Amphibole: "double talk"
- Ambiguous Accent
- Ambiguous Punctuation and Word Order
- Circular Definitions and Question Begging
- Misuse of Etyrnology
- Idiosyncratic Language
CONCLUSION: OVERSIMPLIFICATION
EXERCISES
APPENDIX: SOME LOGICAL PARADOXES
INDEX