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.
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.
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.
The book presents the following 73 informal fallacies:
Accent, Fallacy of Accident, Fallacy of Ad Hominem Ad Hominem Tu Quoque Amphiboly, Fallacy of Anecdotal Evidence, Fallacy Of Appeal to the Consequences of a Belief Appeal to Authority, Fallacious Appeal to Belief Appeal to Common Practice Appeal to Emotion Appeal to Envy Appeal to Fear Appeal to Flattery Appeal to Group Identity Appeal to Guilt Appeal to Novelty Appeal to Pity Appeal to Popularity Appeal to Ridicule Appeal to Spite Appeal to Tradition Appeal to Silence Appeal to Vanity Argumentum ad Hitlerum Begging the Question Biased Generalization Burden of Proof Complex Question Composition, Fallacy of Confusing Cause and Effect Confusing Explanations and Excuses Circumstantial Ad Hominem Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc Division, Fallacy of Equivocation, Fallacy of Fallacious Example Fallacy Fallacy False Dilemma Gambler€s Fallacy Genetic Fallacy Guilt by Association Hasty Generalization Historian€s Fallacy Illicit Conversion Ignoring a Common Cause Incomplete Evidence Middle Ground Misleading Vividness Moving the Goal Posts Oversimplified Cause Overconfident Inference from Unknown Statistics Pathetic Fallacy Peer Pressure Personal Attack Poisoning the Well Positive Ad Hominem Post Hoc Proving X, Concluding Y Psychologist's fallacy Questionable Cause Rationalization Red Herring Reification, Fallacy of Relativist Fallacy Slippery Slope Special Pleading Spotlight Straw Man Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy Two Wrongs Make a Right Victim Fallacy Weak Analogy
The book contains the following three formal (deductive) fallacies:
Affirming the Consequent Denying the Antecedent Undistributed Middle