Here’s a lovely graphical representation of the family of fallacies via The Fallacy Files. (Note: I found out about this infographic first via the Philosorapters blog, which gives advice on job hunting mostly but also occasionally on teaching philosophy.) I think many readers of RAIL will find this way of cutting the cake rather interesting, as the classification of some fallacies is…let’s say novel. Others represented here are altogether new to me (e.g. the “Texas Sharpshooter”).
Whatever one makes of it, you have to tip your cap to the work that no doubt went into putting this concept map together. I’d love to see some alternatives. Anyone out there up for it?
RAIL 
Thanks for the link-back. You have some interesting stuff here, If you run into anything on critical thinking in high school I would love to take a look.
Posted a link-back for Rail CT in the ‘Philosorapters Press’ section.
Keep up the good logic work,
Thanks again,
– Philosorapters
Thank you! Hadn’t looked at fallacy files in a long while, so this was new to me. If I hear of critical thinking initiatives aimed at HS students I’ll certainly post. In the meantime, for general info on CT in critical thinking in HS you might also follow AILACT (see the orgs list at the right).
Cheers!
Steve
To my mind, having so many names for so many fallacies is not in itself a very fruitful idea. It is a nice endeavour maybe for a sociolinguist, but an argumentation theorist (rhetorician, logician etc.) would have to account for the different ways in which the fallacies are distributed – that is, assuming that all the labels stand for a separate language phenomenon.
(To say nothing of the fact that the classification goes full-speed into the same issues as many classic ones did, e.g. Copi’s: the definition of the type does not apply to the subtype, or does not apply in the same way)
Otherwise, as a website, it’s a good place to start.
Yeah, I have to agree. In general I like the application of informatics to fallacies, but on first look the content here struck me as being a bit overcomplicated/outdated in terms of where informal logic and argumentation theory are today.
I have to admit that this sort of blind-spot is (still) really common in the states where critical thinking usually means PC minus quantification plus introductory (non-Bayesian) probability and a handful of fallacies a la Copi. Even at this late date, the gains in informal logic, rhetoric, and informal logic of the last 30 years just haven’t filtered down to the mainstream of philosophy in the US. I think we suffer for it too, especially in political philosophy. I could go on for days on why I think we (American philosophers) need these advances, but I won’t for now. Post forthcoming, at some point… 😉
[…] think I like this one the best of all those shared on RAIL so far. (You can see the others here and here.) It also avoids the tricky business of classification and therefore might be more useful for […]