Logical Fallacies, One Page at a Time

Forty ways an argument goes wrong, one spread each, drawn and explained. A fallacy is not a lie and it is not stupidity. It is an argument whose support does not actually reach its conclusion. This book gives forty of them a page of their own: an original diagram on the left, and on the right a plain definition, a short exchange showing the move in use, and one prompt for catching yourself doing it. They are grouped into six families: relevance, presumption, ambiguity, cause and sample, form, and the moves people make in dialogue. And it says when each one is not a fallacy. Half the accusations of ad hominem, appeal to authority and slippery slope made in public are wrong. Citing a relevant expert is ordinary good practice. Challenging a witness's honesty is legitimate when honesty is the question. A slope with a stated mechanism is an argument, not an error. Fifteen entries here carry a line saying exactly when the argument is a good one, and those lines are collected on a single page at the back with two more limits the book states. Includes: 40 illustrated spreads, each with two worked examples - six family openers - the seventeen limits on one page - three self-tests, including one made of arguments that only look bad.