76 Fallacies
Product Description
76 Fallacies
A fallacy is an error in reasoning. That is, it is a piece of bad logic. Just as it is a good idea to avoid eating bad food, it is also a rather good idea to avoid bad reasoning. Unfortunately, bad reasoning is all too common€"it pours out of the television and infests the web like an army of venomous spiders. Perhaps even worse than the fallacies inflicted from the outside are self-inflicted fallacies. These can lead people to make poor decisions about matters great and small.<br /><br />Fortunately, there is a defense against bad reasoning, namely knowledge. This concise book provides the reader with definitions and examples of seventy-six common fallacies€"the knowledge a person needs to defend herself in a world awash in fallacies.<br /><br />In addition to combining the content of my 42 Fallacies and 30 More Fallacies, this book features some revisions as well as a new section on common formal fallacies. The focus is on providing the reader with definitions and examples of these common fallacies rather than being a handbook on winning arguments or a text on general logic.<br /><br />The book presents the following 73 informal fallacies:<br /><br />Accent, Fallacy of<br />Accident, Fallacy of<br />Ad Hominem<br />Ad Hominem Tu Quoque<br />Amphiboly, Fallacy of<br />Anecdotal Evidence, Fallacy Of<br />Appeal to the Consequences of a Belief<br />Appeal to Authority, Fallacious<br />Appeal to Belief<br />Appeal to Common Practice<br />Appeal to Emotion<br />Appeal to Envy<br />Appeal to Fear<br />Appeal to Flattery<br />Appeal to Group Identity<br />Appeal to Guilt<br />Appeal to Novelty<br />Appeal to Pity<br />Appeal to Popularity<br />Appeal to Ridicule<br />Appeal to Spite<br />Appeal to Tradition<br />Appeal to Silence<br />Appeal to Vanity<br />Argumentum ad Hitlerum<br />Begging the Question<br />Biased Generalization<br />Burden of Proof<br />Complex Question<br />Composition, Fallacy of<br />Confusing Cause and Effect<br />Confusing Explanations and Excuses<br />Circumstantial Ad Hominem<br />Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc<br />Division, Fallacy of<br />Equivocation, Fallacy of<br />Fallacious Example<br />Fallacy Fallacy<br />False Dilemma<br />Gambler€s Fallacy<br />Genetic Fallacy<br />Guilt by Association<br />Hasty Generalization<br />Historian€s Fallacy<br />Illicit Conversion<br />Ignoring a Common Cause<br />Incomplete Evidence<br />Middle Ground<br />Misleading Vividness<br />Moving the Goal Posts<br />Oversimplified Cause<br />Overconfident Inference from Unknown Statistics<br />Pathetic Fallacy<br />Peer Pressure<br />Personal Attack<br />Poisoning the Well<br />Positive Ad Hominem<br />Post Hoc<br />Proving X, Concluding Y<br />Psychologist's fallacy<br />Questionable Cause<br />Rationalization<br />Red Herring<br />Reification, Fallacy of<br />Relativist Fallacy<br />Slippery Slope<br />Special Pleading<br />Spotlight<br />Straw Man<br />Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy<br />Two Wrongs Make a Right<br />Victim Fallacy<br />Weak Analogy<br /><br />The book contains the following three formal (deductive) fallacies:<br /><br />Affirming the Consequent<br />Denying the Antecedent<br />Undistributed Middle
