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Index
Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Truth and Deception in the Human Mind
Uncritical Persons (intellectually unskilled thinkers)
Skilled Manipulators (weak-sense critical thinkers)
Critical Persons (strong-sense critical thinkers)
The Concept of Fallacies of Thought
Naming Fallacies
Mistakes Versus Fallacies
There is No Exhaustive List of Fallacies
Faulty Generalizations
Analyzing Generalizations
Post Hoc Generalizations
Analogies and Metaphors
44 Foul Ways to Win an Argument
Accuse Your Opponent of Doing What He is Accusing You of or worse
Accuse Him of Sliding Down A Slippery Slope (that leads to disaster)
Appeal to Authority
Appeal to Experience
Appeal to Fear
Appeal to Pity (or sympathy)
Appeal to Popular Passions
Appeal to Tradition or Faith (“the tried and true”)
Assume a Posture of Righteousness
Attack the person (and not the argument)
Beg the Question
Call For Perfection (Demand impossible conditions)
Create a False Dilemma (the Great Either/Or)
Devise Analogies (and Metaphors) That Support Your View (even if they are misleading or “false”)
Question Your Opponent’s Conclusions
Create Misgivings: Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire
Create A Straw Man
Deny or Defend Your Inconsistencies
Demonize His Side Sanitize Yours
Evade Questions, Gracefully
Flatter Your Audience
Hedge What You Say
Ignore the Evidence
Ignore the Main Point
Attack Evidence (That Undermines Your Case)
Insist Loudly on a Minor Point
Use the Hard-Cruel-World Argument (to justify doing what is usually considered unethical)
Make (Sweeping) Glittering Generalizations
Make Much of Any Inconsistencies in Your Opponent’s Position
Make Your Opponent Look Ridiculous (“Lost in the Laugh”)
Oversimplify the Issue
Raise Nothing But Objections
Rewrite History (Have It Your Way)
Seek Your Vested Interests
Shift the Ground
Shift the Burden of Proof
Spin, Spin, Spin
Talk in Vague Generalities
Talk Double Talk
Tell Big Lies
Treat Abstract Words and Symbols As If They Were Real Things
Throw In A Red Herring (or two)
Throw in Some Statistics
Use Double Standards (whenever you can)
44 Foul Ways to Win an Argument (Chart)
Fallacy Detection: Analyzing a Speech from the Past
Fallacy Detection: Analyzing a Current Presidential Speech
Fallacy Detection: Analyzing a Speech from a Presidential Candidate
Avoid Two Extremes:
1) Finding Fallacies Only in the Thinking of Others (None in Yourself), and
2) Finding an Equal Number of Fallacies in Everything you Read.
Conclusion: Fallacies in An Ideal (And in a Real) World
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