*See Chapter 12 for the Formal Fallacies

Congratulations! You just advanced to the longest chapter of the book (35 pages). I recommend reviewing the fallacy quizzes before and after reading this chapter. To deeply understand each fallacy, I recommend reading all sections of chapter three and completing the in text activities. 

Click here for a video on the main ideas of this chapter.

For each fallacy listed below and to the left, I provided a definition, examples, discussion, advice, and activities to help you recognize and understand the fallacy.  

*If you are one of my students, your objective is to be able to define, compare, and recognize the 22 fallacies. Take good notes since you can use them on exams. Exam questions may ask you to explain which fallacy a particular argument is or to compare/contrast any two fallacies. You should also use this vocabulary in your papers and class discussions.

*Why and How to Study Fallacies

1. Appeal to nature

2. Black and white thinking  

3. Ad Hominem 

4. Genetic 

5. Slippery slope

6. Argument from ignorance

7. Cherry picking

8. Appeal to emotion and popularity

9. Post hoc

10. Straw man

11. Relativism

12. Absolutism

13. Begging the question

14. Equivocation

15. Hasty Generalization

16. Composition

17. Division

18. Lottery

19. Appeal to inappropriate authority

20. Red herring

21. Playing god

22. Non Sequitur: means “it does not follow.” It is another way of saying “the argument is fallacious” or “the conclusion does not follow from the evidence/premises.”

        See Chapter 12 on Formal Fallacies for more...

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Why bother? Clarify your ideas, win debates, discover truths, more clearly communicate, better evaluate arguments, do philosophy well, and it's fun.