Sorting Through Sophistries: Tu Quoque, Brute
A catch in the whole system of logic is the same thing as what makes it work in the first place: it is no “respecter of persons.”
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Texts in Context: Now We’re Getting Somewhen
Strange shapes move half-visibly in the mists of time; but as the grey recedes, often as not, we seem to find not a window but a mirror.
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Sorting Through Sophistries: The Hominem Family
We here at the CLT Journal are not here to assign blame. That’s for the tu quoque to do.
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Texts in Context: The Age of Saturn
Disentangling traditional myth, archæological fact, and anthropological speculation is a tricky business, which—in a lucky break for historians—can be left to prehistorians.
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Sorting Through Sophistries: Appeals to Authority
Sorting Through Sophistries:Appeals to Authority By Gabriel Blanchard Is it an error in reasoning to appeal to authority for one’s beliefs? Certainly not; but then again, very much
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Texts in Context: History & Its Discontents
History can be tricky, even when one is not being pursued by a rough-and-tumble college professor declaring that the artifact we are trying to study “belongs in a museum.”
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Sorting Through Sophistries: Mental Solitaire
Regrettably, we don’t always need someone else to lead us down the garden path of sophistry; we’re very capable walkers, thanks, and feel sure we can find it unassisted.
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Texts in Context: The Crocodile of Chronology
Time is sometimes depicted as an ouroboros, a serpent eating its tail, a symbol of cyclical recurrence. History is like a bask of crocodiles: they are related to snakes, but have extra features that may distract us, to our peril.
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Texts in Context: How to History
“History is a pack of tricks we play on the dead,” “History is written by the victors,” “History is bunk,” etc.—these are all evaluations of history. But before we decide whose fault it is, what is history?
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Sorting Through Sophistries: Disfigures of Speech
Today, we conclude our review of the first great genus of fallacies with a glance at fallacious treatment of idioms.
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