Daily Archives: December 7, 2015

Four More Informal Fallacies

Introductory Logic, Rhetoric

Formal logic gives us standards by which we can distinguish good reasoning from poor reasoning. Most often, when someone reasons poorly, they are not making an error in formal reasoning, but rather sidetracking their hearers with an informal fallacy. Informal fallacies are less structured errors made in the everyday use of language.

The Introductory Logic text identifies eighteen different types of fallacies, but of course there are many more ways to go wrong than that. My new rhetoric text Fitting Words includes a few popular fallacies not included in Introductory logic. Let me summarize them. Continue reading Four More Informal Fallacies →

#18 – On Christmas

Commonplaces

“It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty founder was a child Himself.” – Charles Dickens

“Christmas is the only time of the year when people of all religions come together to worship Jesus Christ” – Bart Simpson

“When death is thick upon the world, our lives are thick with play. We laugh because there is something that death does not know or cannot remember. That is Christmas.” – Nate Wilson

“There was only one Christmas; the rest are anniversaries.” – W. J. Cameron