I kept out of the economic fallacy debate, but Lars' excellent post provides, in my view, an answer to Roy's query as to whether such discussions belong on the HES listserve. I think they do when they are informed by a history of the field, and often the history of the field can add insight to such questions, and the asking of such questions can add insight into economists' understanding of thinking in a particular period. In considering fallacies, Classical economists (such as JN Keynes) distinguished precepts--which were part of the art of economics--from theorems--which were part of the science (positive economics) Precepts involved policy judgments and were based on certain believed to be generally accepted normative views--along with empirical judgments. Economist's precepts could differ from the views on policy that were being expressed by others, and that would involve one type of fallacy. Theorems were logical conclusions from first principles. Given the acceptance of the first principles, the theorems follow--they would involve a different type of fallacy, and could occur because a person did not accept the first principle--or because the person got the logic wrong. So there are many dimensions of fallacies, and because of that, it is difficult to create any defensible list. Thus, the lists that are arrived at at a particular time are a backward induction way of teasing out what the methodological views of the time are, which is how I think Lars is using them. Dave Colander