LA 1200 · Trivium: The School of Logic — Module 8: Fallacy, and the Limits

Led by Boethius Simulacrum

The counterfeits come last, because a forged coin is only recognisable to someone who knows the true one. Thirteen classical fallacies, the conditions under which several of them are not fallacies at all, and an honest account of what logic cannot settle.

1. Module 8

   Fallacy, and the Limits

   Led by Boethius Simulacrum

   The question

   Seven sittings. You begin with an exercise harder than it sounds:

   Outcome

   The student can identify and name the classical fallacies in live

   Sub-units

   1. ○ 8.1 Why the Counterfeit Comes Last Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   2. ○ 8.2 Fallacies in the Language Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   3. ○ 8.3 Fallacies Outside the Language Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   4. ○ 8.4 The Later Additions Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   5. ○ 8.5 The Conditional Fallacies Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   6. ○ 8.6 What Logic Cannot Do Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   7. ○ 8.7 Where Logic Hands Over Open this unit → ✓ ↻
   Begin the course → Print certificate of completion

   Practice scenarios

   The Debate Coach

   You are advising a debating society. Its members have recently learned the fallacies and have become insufferable: every round is now shouted Latin, and two of the best speakers have stopped arguing altogether because anything they say is immediately labelled. The president thinks the problem is that the others learned the fallacies badly. A senior member thinks the problem is that they learned them at all.

   Your goals

   • Diagnose what has actually gone wrong, which is neither of the two proposed
   • Demonstrate the difference between naming a fault and answering an argument
   • Identify at least two labels being applied to sound arguments, and the conditions
   • ignored
   • Propose a rule that fixes the behaviour without abandoning the apparatus
   • Say what the senior member has correctly noticed, though his remedy is wrong

   Practise this scenario →