A Compendium of Logical Fallacies for Research Scholars

Logical fallacies have been documented since Aristotle's times. However, very few publications are comprehensive enough to be used as a single source for reference for advanced learners, who need to master the skill of detecting fallacies in discussions, debates and research publications.Most textbooks use made-up examples, such as “Cats have four legs, Socrates has two legs, therefore Socrates is a cat” to articulate fallacies. This approach may help the reader to grasp the fallacy easily (and makes it even easier for authors to write books about them), but they may be of little use when it comes to training scholars for detecting fallacies in real-life.All examples in this text are derived from research papers, industry reports, white papers, news and magazine articles, speeches, debates, tweets and even TV programmes. This text deviates from the approach of making up examples and presents content solely from published material and nearly all of them are contemporary examples. Every example is carefully chosen to enable the reader to think. All examples are indexed and referenced, making this text a truly unique academic publication.If you are an educator, an undergraduate, postgraduate or a doctoral scholar or even a debater, you may find this guide valuable for sharpening your skills of reasoning and logic, which in turn, will help you to avoid creating fallacious arguments in your academic work. Examples are presented from a vast array of topics, including philosophy, sociology, physics, IT, politics, economics and many more areas, but carefully chosen to ensure they can be understood and assessed by all learners, making this text useful for any learner. The text also contains a prologue which is a quick primer in argumentation and presents all fallacies with details including similar fallacies, logical (or pseudo-logical) forms, usage, exceptions and in some cases, the history behind the fallacy as well. Read more