Methodology

As discussed in the preface, the core fallacies detailed in this book date back thousands of years to Aristotle. Academic resources were used when possible when compiling this list of fallacies. These resources include papers in peer-reviewed journals, peer-reviewed encyclopedias, and books published by academic presses. The majority of modern, informal fallacies have been defined and named by students of argumentation throughout the years and published in non-academic resources including web pages. On the one hand, this "wisdom of the crowds" approach has helped identify hundreds of errors in reasoning not previously identified due partly to advances in cognitive science, changing communication, and the sheer number of people contributing ideas. On the other hand, there are many so-called "logical fallacies" that are not worthy of that title by any reasonable definition. Through an exhaustive and ongoing search for the uses and mentions of logical fallacies, I catalog these and subject them to my previously mentioned criteria. Those that pass the test make it as a named logical fallacy in this book. Those that don't are either ignored,or if visible enough on the Internet, have a mention in the "Pseudo Logical Fallacies" section at the end of this book.