Traditionally, logicians construed fallacies as mistakes in inference, as things that looked like good (i.e., deductively valid) arguments but were not. Two fallacies stood out like a sore thumb on this view of fallacies: the fallacy of many questions (because it does not even look like a good argument, or any kind of argument) and the fallacy of petitio principii (because it looks like and is a good argument). The latter is the concern of this paper. One possible response is (...) to say that the tradition is right about the concept of fallacy but wrong about its extension: petitio principii is not a fallacy. If the only proper ways to criticize an argument are to say that it is invalid or that it is unsound, and petitio principii is not criticisable on either of these counts, then calling it a fallacy is tantamount to saying we should prefer invalid or unsound arguments Robinson (Analysis, 31(4): 114 ,1971). I will present a third way to logically criticize arguments and show that fallacious instances of petitio principii are so criticisable while other instances of petitio principii are non-fallacious; hence, this fallacy is not a reductio of the Standard Treatment. It is not my intention in this paper to come out on the side of any of the competing theories—the Standard Treatment, the dialectical theories, and the epistemic theories—as general theories of fallacy. I show only that petitio principii can be handled by something closely resembling the Standard Treatment in so far as that, on entirely logistical principles, there can be made a distinction such that circular arguments form at best a degenerate kind of argument. Circular arguments look like good arguments but are not, not because they are deductively invalid (which they are not) but because they do not deserve to be called arguments at all. (shrink)

Several of the so-called “fallacies” in Aristotle are not in fact mistaken inference-types, but mistakes or breaches of rules in the questioning games which were practiced in the Academy and in the Lyceum. Hence the entire Aristotelian theory of “fallacies” ought to be studied by reference to the author's interrogative model of inquiry, based on his theory of questions and answers, rather than as a part of the theory of inference. Most of the “fallacies” mentioned by Aristotle can in fact (...) be diagnosed by means of the interrogative model, including petitio principii, multiple questions, “babbling’, etc., and so can Aristotle's alleged anticipation of the fallacy of argumentum ad hominem. The entire Aristotelian conception of inquiry is an interrogative one. Deductive conclusions caught Aristotle's attention in the form of answers that every rational interlocutor must give, assuming only his own earlier answers. Several features of Aristotle's methodology can be understood by means of the interrogative model, including the role of endoxa in it. Theoretically, there is also considerable leeway as to whether “fallacies” are conceived of as mistakes in questioning or as breaches of the rules that govern questioning games. (shrink)

Presenting the first book-length study in English of Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations, this work takes a fresh look at this seminal text on false reasoning.

For the second edition, the translation has been completely rewritten and the commentary has been thoroughly revised in the light of recent scholarship.

This translation of the central books of the Metaphysics aims at no literary value, only literalness.