The Book of Fallacies

Front Cover
Clarendon Press, 2015 - 552 pages
The present edition of The Book of Fallacies is the first that follows Bentham's own structure for the work, and includes a great deal of material, both in terms of the fallacies themselves and the illustrative matter, that previous versions of the work have omitted. The fallacies that concerned Bentham were not logical errors of the sort identified by Aristotle, or commonplace misunderstandings of matters of fact, but arguments deployed in political debate, in particular in the British Parliament, in order to prevent reform.

Bentham not only identified, described, and criticized the fallacious arguments in question, which were all characterized by their irrelevancy, but explained the sinister interests that led politicians to employ them and their supporters to accept them. By exposing these political fallacies, Bentham hoped to prevent their employment in future, and thereby to place political debate on its only proper ground, namely considerations drawn from the principle of utility.
 

Contents

SYMBOLS AND ABBREVIATIONS
xviii
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
xix
THE BOOK OF FALLACIES
1
INTRODUCTION
31
CHAPTER 2 CLASSIFICATION OF POLITICAL FALLACIES
33
CHAPTER 3 USE OF THIS ENQUIRYREMEDIAL MEASURES PROPOSED
72
BOOK I FALLACIES OF THE INS
81
PART I FALLACIES APPLYING TO MENS FEARS
83
BOOK III FALLACIES OF THE OUTS
393
PART IX FALLACIES APPLYING TO MENS JEALOUSIES AND ENVYINGS
395
APPENDIXES
401
APPENDIX A PREFACE
403
APPENDIX B INTRODUCTION
413
APPENDIX C INTRODUCTION
424
APPENDIX D PART IV
436
APPENDIX E PARTS VI VII
449

PART II FALLACIES APPLYING TO MENS SELFDIFFIDENCE
119
PART III FALLACIES APPLYING TO MENS SELFDIFFIDENCE CONTINUED ANTIRATIONAL FALLACIES
201
PART IV FALLACIES APPLYING TO MENS SUPERSTITIONS
229
PART V FALLACIES APPLYING TO MENS INDOLENCE AND INDIFFERENCE
273
PART VI FALLACIES APPLYING TO MENS ANTIPATHIES
291
BOOK II EITHERSIDE FALLACIES
305
PART VII FALLACIES APPLYING TO MENS SYMPATHIES
307
PART VIII FALLACIES APPLYING TO THE JUDICIAL FACULTY
315
APPENDIX F PART VIII
455
APPENDIX G PART VIII
459
APPENDIX H PART VIII
473
APPENDIX I PART VIII
486
APPENDIX J PART IX
489
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
495
INDEX OF NAMES
544
Copyright

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About the author (2015)

Jeremy Bentham was born in London, on February 15, 1748, the son of an attorney. He was admitted to Queen's College, Oxford, at age 12 and graduated in 1763. He had his master's degree by 1766 and passed the bar exam in 1769. An English reformer and political philosopher, Bentham spent his life supporting countless social and political reform measures and trying as well to create a science of human behavior. He advocated a utopian welfare state and designed model cities, prisons, schools, and so on, to achieve that goal. He defined his goal as the objective study and measurement of passions and feelings, pleasures and pains, will and action. The principle of "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," set forth in his Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, governed all of his schemes for the improvement of society, and the philosophy he devised, called utilitarianism, set a model for all subsequent reforms based on scientific principles. Bentham also spoke about complete equality between the sexes, law reform, separation of church and state, the abolition of slavery, and animal rights. Bentham died on June 6, 1832, at the age of 84 at his residence in Queen Square Place in Westminster, London. He had continued to write up to a month before his death, and had made careful preparations for the dissection of his body after death and its preservation as an auto-icon.

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