History on Fallacies

I like to think that I am a logicial thinker. Being in a very technical major I have to use logical thinking a lot. It is important that I am able to identify flaws in logic which is why I find fallicies so interesting. This week's post looks at some history of fallacies.

"Argumentum ad Hominem is a fallacy."

A "fallacy" is a mistake, and a "logical" fallacy is a mistake in reasoning. It is a misconception resulting from incorrect reasoning in argumentation. By accident or design, fallacies may exploit emotional triggers in the listener, or take advantage of social relationships between people. Fallacious arguments are often structured using rhetorical patterns that obscure the logical argument, making fallacies more difficult to diagnose. Also, the components of the fallacy may be spread out over separate arguments.

Aristotle was the first formal logician. He was known for codifying the rules of correct reasoning and cataloging types of incorrect reasoning, namely, fallacies. He was both the first to name types of logical error, and the first to group them into categories.

However, Aristotle's teacher, Plato, deserves credit for being the first philosopher to collect examples of bad reasoning. Plato is known to have conduct important preliminary field work before naming and cataloging.

Fallacious arguments are sometimes called "sophisms" and bad reasoning "sophistry". Aristotle refers to a few of these examples as instances of his named fallacies.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/

By George Vauter