About LogFall
A teaching-focused reference built by Phil Stilwell and his students.
LogFall grew out of years of teaching critical thinking, logic, and argument analysis in university classrooms. It is designed to help readers recognize reasoning mistakes, distinguish near neighbors, and practice clearer habits of interpretation, comparison, and repair.
Phil Stilwell is an essentially retired academic consultant, researcher, and university instructor whose work has centered on philosophy, epistemology, critical thinking, and macroeconomic theory.
About Phil Stilwell
Phil Stilwell’s career has spanned more than 26 years, much of it in Japan, across university instruction, academic consulting, and research. His main areas of focus include philosophy of science, epistemology, induction, analytic philosophy, applied logic, and critical thinking, with continuing work connected to Credencing. He also remains engaged with questions in cognitive science, economic modeling, and technological change.
- BA Philosophy, 1996 — Summa Cum Laude, The University of Kansas
- MA Education, 1998 — The University of Kansas
- Teaching focus — critical thinking, philosophy, epistemology, macroeconomics, and technical writing
- Professional base — university instruction and academic consulting, primarily in Japan
Academic background
Phil has designed and taught university-level philosophy curricula, including a general survey course with emphasis on analytic philosophy and existentialism. His research interests have centered on epistemology, induction, the philosophy of science, and the structure of rational belief.
Applied logic and instruction
A central aim of his teaching has been the cultivation of applied logic and critical analysis. He taught critical thinking courses for university and professional audiences, including work at the NYU School of Professional Studies in Tokyo, and later served as a Speech & Debate Judge for the Japan Customs Bureau national contest, including a term as Chief Judge from 2016 to 2017.
Macroeconomics and systems analysis
Phil’s analytical work also extends to macroeconomic theory and forecasting. From 2011 to 2015, he taught macroeconomics at Gakushuin University and developed “The Shape of the Future,” a course focused on futurology and systemic forecasting.
Academic consulting and technical communication
Through Stilwell Consulting, which he has operated since 2003, Phil has helped professors and graduate researchers refine technical writing into journal-level English and prepare papers and presentations for elite academic settings. From 2015 to 2017, he also taught technical writing at The University of Tokyo, focusing on style guides, composition, and publication practice for international graduate students.
Why This Site Exists
A classroom-built resource for teaching better reasoning.
The inspiration for LogFall came from the many critical thinking classes Phil taught over the years. The project began as a practical teaching tool and gradually became a broader reference for students, instructors, debaters, and careful readers.
Classroom origin
In class, students often needed more than a list of fallacy names. They needed help distinguishing similar mistakes, seeing exactly where an argument slipped, and learning how to repair a weak argument instead of merely labeling it. LogFall was shaped around those repeated classroom needs.
Joint effort with students
This collection of logical fallacies was a joint effort between Phil and his students. Class discussions, example-hunting, objections, revisions, and moments of confusion all helped sharpen the entries, making the site less like a static glossary and more like a teaching resource tested against real classroom use.
What each page is for
Each fallacy page combines a definition, a concrete example, explanatory notes, case studies, related fallacies, companion imagery, and a guided practice tool. The goal is not just to name a mistake, but to help readers see the structure of the mistake clearly enough to avoid repeating it.
How the categories help
Categories group fallacies by the main kind of reasoning failure involved, so readers can compare similar mistakes instead of memorizing isolated labels. That structure makes the site more useful for teaching, self-study, and side-by-side diagnosis.
How To Use This Knowledge
Fallacy study works best when it is aimed inward first.
The best reason to learn logical fallacies is not to collect clever ways of defeating other people in argument. It is to become better at noticing one’s own reasoning shortcuts, rhetorical temptations, and avoidable mistakes.
Use it for self-correction
Fallacy knowledge becomes shallow when it is used mainly as a weapon against opponents. Used well, it is an inward-facing discipline: a way of slowing down, checking one’s own inferences, and asking whether one’s preferred conclusion has been reached too quickly, too emotionally, or on too little evidence.
Do not treat labels as knockouts
Naming a fallacy does not automatically settle a dispute. A weak argument can defend a true conclusion, a strong argument can be stated badly, and real reasoning often needs patient reconstruction before it can be judged fairly. LogFall is meant to support clearer thinking, not point-scoring.
One part of a rational mind
Knowledge of logical fallacies is only one small part of a well-rounded rational mind. Good judgment also depends on familiarity with cognitive biases, probability theory, statistical reasoning, and the difference between stronger and weaker forms of evidence.
Build the wider toolkit
Readers who want to reason well should also understand how deductive and inductive arguments work, how confidence should track evidence, and how sampling, uncertainty, and causal inference can distort judgment. Fallacy study matters most when it is integrated into that larger discipline of rational inquiry.