Definition:
A fallacious or defective argument or conclusion. See also: fallacy.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "beyond reason"Examples and Observations:
- "Illogical reasoning, particularly of which the reasoner is unconscious. . . .
"Ex:'I asked him [Salvatore, a simpleton] whether it was not also true that lords and bishops accumulated possessions through tithes, so that the Shepherds were not fighting their true enemies. He replied that when your true enemies are too strong, you have to choose weaker enemies' (Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose, p. 192)."
(Bernard Marie Dupriez and Albert W. Halsall, A Dictionary of Literary Devices, University of Toronto Press, 1991) - "Paralogism is either Fallacy, if unintentional, or Sophism, if intended to deceive. It is under the latter aspect particularly that Aristotle considers false reasoning."
(Charles S. Peirce, Qualitative Logic, 1886) - "Today the term [paralogism] is associated almost entirely with Immanuel Kant who, in a section of his first Critique on Transcendental Dialectic, distinguished between Formal and Transcendental Paralogisms. By the latter he understood the Fallacies of Rational Psychology which began with the 'I think' experience as premise, and concluded that man possesses a substantial, continuous, and separable soul. Kant also termed this the Psychological Paralogism, and the Paralogisms of Pure Reasoning."
(William L. Reese, Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion, Humanities Press, 1980)
Also Known As: fallacy, false reasoning
