Philosophical Fallacies: Ways of Erring in Philosophical Exposition

Preface
Contents
List of Displays
Chapter 1: Error, Mistake, and Fallacy in Philosophizing
	Philosophical Error
	The Rule of Reason
	Error Versus Mistake
	Mistakes in Versus About Philosophy
	Error Versus Disagreement
Chapter 2: Classifying Philosophical Fallacies
	Fallacy
	Inconsistency
	Unreasonable Demand
	A Survey of Philosophical Fallacies
	Failure to Heed Distinctions
	Contravening Common Sense
	Consequence Unacceptability
	Improper Possibility Elimination
	Coincidence Dismissal
	Obscurantism
	Bias and Dogmatism
	Analogy Stretching
	Premiss Deficiency
	Counterexample Admission
	Infinite Regression
	Improper Modal Transit
	Category Confusion
	Meaning Deficiency
	Value Distortion and Misprioritization
	Coda
Chapter 3: Illustrating Philosophical Fallacies
	Prioritization in Pre-Socratic Metaphysics
	Self-Contradiction: The Liar
	Plato and the Third Man
	The Skeptical Diallelus
	Buridan’s Ass
	Descartes Hasty Generalization
	Cartesian Certainty
	Descartes’ Representative Ego
	Spinoza’s Necessitarianism
	Kant’s Things in Themselves
	J. S. Mill’s Fallacious Desirability
	Hume’s Self-Seeking
	Nietzsche’s Eternal Recurrence
	W. K. Clifford’s Absolutism
	Free Will Issues
	Wittgensteinean Language Sufficiency
	Philosophical Questions
	Logical Positivism’s Meaninglessness
	Austin’s on Imprecision
	Inference to the Best Explanation
	Coda
Chapter 4: The Fallacy of Respect Neglect
	Respect Neglect
	Simplicity
	Further Examples
	Perspectival Dissonance and Non-amalgamation
	Problems of Analogy
	Summary
Chapter 5: Fallacies Regarding Free Will
	Problems of Free Will
	Need Free Will Violate Causality?
	Distinguishing Matters of Determination
	Freedom and Deliberation
	Freedom and Necessitation
	Is Free Will Unnatural?
	Freedom and Motivation
	Is Free Will Unscientific?
	Conclusion
Chapter 6: Totalization Fallacies
	Sufficient Reason and Any/Every Issue
	Is Origination Ex Nihilo Compatible with the Principle of Causality?
	Ultimate Questions and Totalistic Problems
	The Hume-Edwards Principle
	Counterexamples
	A Last-Ditch Stand
	A Radical Turning
Chapter 7: The Significance of Philosophical Fallacies
	Oversimplification as a Key Source of Philosophical Fallacy
	Foresight Problems
	Philosophy Is No One-Size-Fits-all Endeavor: The Inevitability of Philosophical Variation and Disagreement
	Not Every Philosophical Defect Is the Product of Fallacy
	Linearly Inferential Versus Dialectically Cyclic Reasoning
	Ampliative Versus Reductive Reasoning
	Two Very Different Sorts of Acceptability: Qualified Belief
	The Place of Dialectics in Philosophy
	Good Philosophizing
	Fallacy Need Not Prove Fatal
Bibliography
Index