Preface

Summary

The philosophy of reasoning, to be complete, ought to comprise the theory of bad as well as of good reasoning.

– John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic

This latest addition to the Cambridge series in Critical Reasoning and Argumentation is a study of bad reasoning, principally as conveyed through traditional and modern fallacies. While the study of fallacies has a long and detailed history, the bulk of critical literature on the fallacies has appeared in the last three or four decades. So much that is new and interesting can be drawn into a full study of the fallacies. The rationale behind this volume is to introduce students to the study of fallacy by means of the latest research in the field, along with some of the standard ideas that have remained relevant since the time of Aristotle. Thus, each topic and fallacy is couched within a discussion of current thinking, providing the clearest explanation possible of both what goes wrong in some of the more prevalent patterns of fallacious reasoning and why arguers and audiences might be misled by such errors.

One thing the recent literature has made very clear is that fallacies are far more complex, and thus deserving of much fuller analyses, than the traditional textbook treatments have suggested. Too often, fallacies are assigned a label and a brief description, along with an admonition to students to avoid such mistakes in their own reasoning.