Fallacy: invalid argument, aporetic reasoning.
In ordinary language, a mistaken belief, e.g., the “Gambler’s fallacy” — the belief that a certain combination of die can be “due to come up” in the next toss.” In the study of argumentation (argumentation theory), a fallacy is a recurrent flaw of reasoning. Originally, Aristotle uses the Greek term translated as sophism to refer to an error in the kind of dialogue practiced in the Lyceum. Later comes the term“fallacy” that derives from “fallax” — the Latin translation of sophismos. There it took on the connotation of deception, which has persisted. In the 20th century, the best known definition is that of Hamblin (1970): a fallacious argumentis one that appears to be valid but is not. Other conceptions (among many): Kahane (1971) takes a fallacy to be an argument that ought not to persuade anyone of its conclusion; Johnson and Blair (1977) take a fallacy to be a type of recurrent argument that violates one of the criteria for a logically good argument; van Eemeren and Grootendorst (1992) take a fallacy to be a violation of the rules of reasonable dialectical procedures.
Hamblin, C.L. (1970). Fallacies. London: Methuen. (Reprinted (2004). Newport News, VA: ValePress. With a preface by John Plecnik and John Hoaglund and a current bibliography by Michael F. Schmidtand Hans V. Hansen) [A key work that served to revitalize the study of fallacy and also stimulated interest in dialectic.]
Kahane, H. (1971). Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. (10th edition: Kahane, H and Cavender, N., 2006.) [The text that started a significant trend in teaching logic to undergraduates— the turn away from teaching elementary formal logic, the use of informal fallacies, and the use of current arguments about contemporary social issues as examples for instruction and exercises.]
Johnson, R.H. and Blair, J.A.(1977). Logical Self Defense (3rd edition,1993.Toronto:McGraw-Hill Ryerson; first United States edition: 1994. New York: McGraw-Hill; reprinted, New York: International Debate Education Association: 2006.)[A nearly and influential informal logic textbook ,in which the norms of Relevance, Acceptability and Sufficiency are introduced and used in the analysis of informal fallacies.]
Eemeren, F.H. van & Grootendorst, R. (1992). Argumentation, Communication and Fallacies, A Pragma-Dialectical Perspective. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates . [In this work, the authors develop in detail how the Pragma-Dialectical approach applies to fallacies, and argue that all fallacies maybe understood as violations of dialectical discussion rules.]
