Informal Logical Fallacies: A Brief Guide

by Jacob E. Van Vleet

Critical thinking is now needed more than ever. This accessible and engaging book provides the necessary tools to question and challenge the discourse that surrounds us --- whether in the media, the classroom, or everyday conversation. Additionally, it offers readers a deeper understanding of the foundations of analytical thought. Informal Logical Fallacies: A Brief Guide is a systematic and concise introduction to more than forty fallacies, from anthropomorphism and argumentum ad baculum, to reductionism and the slippery slope argument. With helpful definitions, relevant examples, and thought-provoking exercises, the author guides the reader through the realms of fallacious reasoning and deceptive rhetoric. This is an essential guide to philosophical reflection and clear thinking.

Genres: Philosophy, Logic, Nonfiction, How To

82 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 17, 2010

Reviews

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is fine for what it is. It just leads you through examples of many different types of "informal" logical fallacies, or those not from formal logic. He gives many concrete displays of each fallacy, and usually an explanation of why they fail to be logical.

The book comes with some exercises to do at the end, but they are so easy that you can skim them and be done in a couple minutes.

It also has two excerpts from Aristotle and Bertrand Russell on truth and logic, which were interesting since I haven't studied either of them.

One issue I had is that it felt like some of the examples he gave for the fallacies, and in the exercises, didn't really seem like they actually resembled that particular fallacy. It's not a huge issue, but it made me question the book's legitimacy.

There's also a hilarious point when he covers the psuedo-profundity fallacy. It's basically whenever people say garbage that sounds intelligent and insightful, but doesn't mean anything once it's genuinely examined. For an example, the author uses Heidegger quotes.

Now, Heidegger definitely writes gibberish here and there, but he chose quotes that actually weren't meaningless or hard to understand. Like the other one, this isn't a massive issue, but it just puts a bad taste in my mouth.

I wish he would have given examples that weren't so easily dismantled sometimes. Most people don't have an issue seeing through garbage that is transparently garbage. It's when a fallacy is cloaked or camouflaged somehow. Maybe through language, maybe through context, but I wish he would have put tougher examples to work through.

For anyone who wants a quick guide to this stuff, the book is probably pretty helpful. It's not perfect but it definitely fulfills its purpose.

[Ezzah Babar · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book for anyone looking to improve their critical thinking skills and counteract flaws in reasoning. Concise and very accessible!

[Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gets the Job Done

This book will surely help improve one's critical thinking skills. It has several categories for the different types of errors that people commit when reasoning along with the specific errors related to those categories. This book also contain examples of each fallacy listed along with exercises to retain one's learning. It has helped me to become more persuasive and improve my reasoning skills and articulate my arguments clearly and eloquently.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this book. This one is very concise and very easy to understand. However, since some examples presented for some logical fallicies are very short and given without any detailed context, it is very hard to judge whether those case are logical fallacies or not. However, I enjoyed reading this so much.

[alina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Immediately a star off because my professor wrote this book and made us buy it for the course only to provide photocopy handouts a couple weeks later and now I've spent 30$ on a book I can't return. Content-wise it was fine. Helpful and concise.

I hope he doesn't see this before the end of the semester.

[Steven Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a short book. Good reference, but when I ordered it I was not aware that it was so thin. Worked out to about $0.25 per page... no kidding. Some of the examples could have been better, perhaps with a little more depth.

[Deniz Kaptan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky to have Van Vleet as my philosophy professor for a semester. Just like lectures, his book is very articulate, detailed yet simple and easy to digest. What I learned from this book’s still stuck with me and I am able to form more convincing arguments.

[Joshua Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent little book on logical fallacies and critical thinking – a must read for all undergraduates, especially students of law, politics, philosophy, media studies and journalism.

[Enrique · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides an easy explanation of the most common informal logical fallacies. Very recommended.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great introduction to informal fallacies. Must read for all beginners before going to more difficult books.

[Kylie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid introduction to logical fallacies. Provides examples and explanations while avoiding overly technical terminology. Appendix with valid argument forms is also useful.