You know the other person is wrong, but their argument sounds so reasonable you cannot locate the flaw. That trap is a logical fallacy, and this episode builds a field guide to faulty reasoning from the ground up. It begins with Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations around 350 BCE and its 13 errors split into verbal and material fallacies, then turns to the Nyaya Sutras of ancient India, where high-stakes debate tournaments produced a rigorous system for catching self-defeating arguments, including the example of someone arguing that fire is cold.

The hosts clarify that a fallacious argument can still reach a true conclusion, like a student using the wrong formula and landing on the right answer, then distinguish formal fallacies from informal ones and explain Martin Boudry's fallacy fork. A live mock argument about smartphones demonstrates h ...