Sacha Chua - tag - logic https://sachachua.com/blog/tag/logic/feed/index.xml Emacs, sketches, and life Sat, 04 Apr 2026 02:23:03 GMT en-US daily 1 11ty Book: How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic https://sachachua.com/blog/2010/09/book-how-to-win-every-argument-the-use-and-abuse-of-logic/ Thu, 30 Sep 2010 12:00:00 GMT book reading https://sachachua.com/blog/?p=18520 cracks
Photo (c) 2008 Simon Peckhan – Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Licence

Madsen Pirie (2006) London: Continuum International
ISBN: 0826490069

How to Win Every Argument is a tour of 79 logical fallacies. Pirie's clever examples help you recognize past fallacies that have tricked you, refute fallacies that come up, and perhaps even perpetrate them on others.

In fact, it might be fun to play fallacy scavenger hunt: pick a set of fallacies (or the entire thing!), and keep your eyes and ears open for occurrences. It might be easier to memorize a small set of definitions and rebuttal techniques than to try to identify all of the fallacies you come across. Just listening to a CBC Radio call-in section, I've come across argumentum ad misericordiam (#49), post hoc ergo propter hoc (#59), loaded words (#48), argumentum ad populum (#57), argumentum ad nauseum (#50), and unaccepted enthymemes (#75). This armchair quarterbacking doesn't mean I do any better myself in my conversations, though – but it does mean I see room for personal improvement. Might be fun to fold into our weekly routine, as we've started picking up Saturday papers so that J- has materials for her current news homework.

I'm looking forward to regularly learning from “How to Win Every Argument”, and getting better at recognizing and refuting (or using!) logical fallacies.

Contents:

  1. Abusive analogy
  2. Accent
  3. Accident
  4. Affirming the consequent
  5. Amphiboly
  6. Analogical fallacy
  7. Antiquitam, argumentum ad
  8. Apriorism
  9. Baculum, argumentum ad
  10. Bifurcation
  11. Blinding with science
  12. The bogus dilemma
  13. Circulus in probando
  14. The complex question (plurium interrogationum)
  15. Composition
  16. Concealed qualification
  17. Conclusion which denies premises
  18. Contradictory premises
  19. Crumenam, argumentum ad
  20. Cum hoc ergo propter hoc
  21. Damning the alternatives
  22. Definitional retreat
  23. Denying the antecedent
  24. Dicto simpliciter
  25. Division
  26. Emotional appeals
  27. Equivocation
  28. Every schoolboy knows
  29. The exception that proves the rule
  30. Exclusive premises
  31. The existential fallacy
  32. Ex-post-facto statistics
  33. Extensional pruning
  34. False conversion
  35. False precision
  36. The gambler's fallacy
  37. The genetic fallacy
  38. Half-concealed qualification
  39. Hedging
  40. Hominem (abusive), argumentum ad
  41. Hominem (circumstantial), argumentum ad
  42. Ignoratiam, argumentum ad
  43. Ignoratio elenchi
  44. Illicit process
  45. Irrelevant humour
  46. Lapidem, argumentum ad
  47. Lazarum, argumentum ad
  48. Loaded words
  49. Misericordiam, argumentum ad
  50. Nauseum, argumentum ad
  51. Non-anticipation
  52. Novitam, argumentum ad
  53. Numeram, argumentum ad
  54. One-sided assessment
  55. Petitio principii
  56. Poisoning the well
  57. Populum, argumentum ad
  58. Positive conclusion from negative premise
  59. Post hoc ergo propter hoc
  60. Quaternio terminorum
  61. The red herring
  62. Refuting the example
  63. Reification
  64. The runaway train
  65. Secundum quid
  66. Shifting ground
  67. Shifing the burden of proof
  68. The slippery slope
  69. Special pleading
  70. The straw man
  71. Temperantiam, argumentum ad
  72. Thatcher's blame
  73. Trivial objections
  74. Tu quoque
  75. Unaccepted enthymemes
  76. The undistributed middle
  77. Unobtainable perfection
  78. Verecundiam, argumentum ad
  79. Wishful thinking

You can view 4 comments or e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.

]]>