Logical Fallacies

Jeff Netto's English 103

 In the game of critical reasoning there are not only obstacles for our dectectives to overcome (i.e., false clues and enigmas), but also a whole gamut of tricks and traps which threaten to impede their progress and lead their investigations astray. These tricks and traps are the logical fallacies, and every detective worth his or her salt has long since learned to spot them and to avoid them while playing this game of high-stakes critical reasoning.

What follows is a short catalogue of some of the major fallacies that our detectives have learned to detect in the reasoning of their adversaries, and to reject in their own, superior reasoning. To help us master these fallacies, I have divided them into three separate categories, or families of fallacy:

Non Sequitur Fallacies -- Errors in Logical Form Rhetorical Fallacies -- Errors in Argumentation Fallacies of Incoherence -- Errors in Focus