Bad Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Fallacies in Western Philosophy

A timely and accessible guide to 100 of the most infamous logical fallacies in Western philosophy, helping readers avoid and detect false assumptions and faulty reasoning

You’ll love this book or you’ll hate it. So, you’re either with us or against us. And if you’re against us then you hate books. No true intellectual would hate this book.

Ever decide to avoid a restaurant because of one bad meal? Choose a product because a celebrity endorsed it? Or ignore what a politician says because she’s not a member of your party? For as long as people have been discussing, conversing, persuading, advocating, proselytizing, pontificating, or otherwise stating their case, their arguments have been vulnerable to false assumptions and faulty reasoning. Drawing upon a long history of logical falsehoods and philosophical flubs, Bad Arguments demonstrates how misguided arguments come to be, and what we can do to detect them in the rhetoric of others and avoid using them ourselves.

Fallacies—or conclusions that don’t follow from their premise—are at the root of most bad arguments, but it can be easy to stumble into a fallacy without realizing it. In this clear and concise guide to good arguments gone bad, Robert Arp, Steven Barbone, and Michael Bruce take readers through 100 of the most infamous fallacies in Western philosophy, identifying the most common missteps, pitfalls, and dead-ends of arguments gone awry. Whether an instance of sunk costs, is ought, affirming the consequent, moving the goal post, begging the question, or the ever-popular slippery slope, each fallacy engages with examples drawn from contemporary politics, economics, media, and popular culture. Further diagrams and tables supplement entries and contextualize common errors in logical reasoning.

At a time in our world when it is crucial to be able to identify and challenge rhetorical half-truths, this bookhelps readers to better understand flawed argumentation and develop logical literacy. Unrivaled in its breadth of coverage and a worthy companion to its sister volume Just the Arguments (2011), Bad Arguments is an essential tool for undergraduate students and general readers looking to hone their critical thinking and rhetorical skills.

Table of Contents

Part I Formal Fallacies
Chapter 1 Affirming A Disjunct
Chapter 2 Affirming The Consequent
Chapter 3 Denying The Antecedent
Chapter 4 Exclusive Premises
Chapter 5 Four Terms
Chapter 6 Illicit Major And Minor Terms
Chapter 7 Undistributed Middle

Part II Informal Fallacies
Chapter 8 Ad Hominem: Bias
Chapter 9 Ad Hominem: Circumstantial
Chapter 10 Ad Hominem: Direct
Chapter 11 Ad Hominem: Tu Quoque
Chapter 12 Adverse Consequences
Chapter 13 Appeal To Emotion: Force Or Fear
Chapter 14 Appeal To Emotion: Pity
Chapter 15 Appeal To Ignorance
Chapter 16 Appeal To The People
Chapter 17 Appeal To Personal Incredulity
Chapter 18 Appeal To Ridicule
Chapter 19 Appeal To Tradition
Chapter 20 Argument From Fallacy
Chapter 21 Availability Error
Chapter 22 Base Rate
Chapter 23 Burden Of Proof
Chapter 24 Countless Counterfeits
Chapter 25 Diminished Responsibility
Chapter 26 Essentializing
Chapter 27 Galileo Gambit
Chapter 28 Gambler’S Fallacy
Chapter 29 Genetic Fallacy
Chapter 30 Historian’S Fallacy
Chapter 31 Homunculus
Chapter 32 Inappropriate Appeal To Authority
Chapter 33 Irrelevant Conclusion
Chapter 34 Kettle Logic
Chapter 35 Line Drawing
Chapter 36 Mistaking The Relevance Of Proximate Causation
Chapter 37 Moving The Goalposts
Chapter 38 Mystery, Therefore Magic
Chapter 39 Naturalistic Fallacy
Chapter 40 Poisoning The Well
Chapter 41 Proving Too Much
Chapter 42 Psychologist’S Fallacy
Chapter 43 Red Herring
Chapter 44 Reductio Ad Hitlerum
Chapter 45 Argument By Repetition
Chapter 46 Special Pleading
Chapter 47 Straw Man
Chapter 48 Sunk Cost
Chapter 49 Two Wrongs Make A Right
Chapter 50 Weak Analogy
Chapter 51 Accent
Chapter 52 Amphiboly
Chapter 53 Composition
Chapter 54 Confusing An Explanation For An Excuse
Chapter 55 Definist Fallacy
Chapter 56 Division
Chapter 57 Equivocation
Chapter 58 Etymological Fallacy
Chapter 59 Euphemism
Chapter 60 Hedging
Chapter 61 If By Whiskey
Chapter 62 Inflation Of Conflict
Chapter 63 Legalistic Mistake
Chapter 64 Oversimplification
Chapter 65 Proof By Verbosity
Chapter 66 Sorites Fallacy
Chapter 67 Accident
Chapter 68 All Or Nothing
Chapter 69 Anthropomorphic Bias
Chapter 70 Begging The Question
Chapter 71 Chronological Snobbery
Chapter 72 Complex Question
Chapter 73 Confirmation Bias
Chapter 74 Conjunction
Chapter 75 Constructive Nature Of Perception
Chapter 76 Converse Accident
Chapter 77 Existential Fallacy
Chapter 78 False Cause: Cum Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
Chapter 79 False Cause: Ignoring Common Cause
Chapter 80 False Cause: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc
Chapter 81 False Dilemma
Chapter 82 Free Speech
Chapter 83 Guilt By Association
Chapter 84 Hasty Generalization
Chapter 85 Intentional Fallacy
Chapter 86 Is/Ought Fallacy
Chapter 87 Masked Man
Chapter 88 Middle Ground
Chapter 89 Mind Projection
Chapter 90 Moralistic Fallacy
Chapter 91 No True Scotsman
Chapter 92 Reification
Chapter 93 Representative Heuristic
Chapter 94 Slippery Slope
Chapter 95 Stolen Concept
Chapter 96 Subjective Validation
Chapter 97 Subjectivist Fallacy
Chapter 98 Suppressed Evidence
Chapter 99 Unfalsifiability
Chapter 100 Unwarranted Assumption