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David N. Perkins has studied everyday reasoning by an experimental-critical approach involving taped interviews during which subjects reflect on controversial issues and articulate their reasoning on both sides. The present author has studied scientific reasoning in natural language by an historical-textual approach involving the reconstruction and evaluation of the arguments in Galileo's Two Chief World Systems. They have, independently, reached the strikingly similar substantive conclusion that the most common flaw of informal reasoning is the failure to consider lines of argument supporting conclusions contrary to the one in fact reached. This article describes, compares, and contrasts their respective approaches, results, and theoretical frameworks.

This is a critical appreciation of Govier's 2006 ISSA keynote address on the fallacy of composition, and of economists' writings on this fallacy in economics. I argue that the "fallacy of composition" is a problematical concept, because it does not denote a distinctive kind of argument but rather a plurality, and does not constitute a distinctive kind of error, but rather reduces to oversimplification in arguing from micro to macro. Finally, I propose further testing of this claim based on examples involving public vs. private debt in economics; oligarchic tendencies in politics, and the emergence of societal wholes in sociology. Résumé:Il s'agit d'une appréciation critique du discours de Govier lors du congrès d'ISSA en 2006 sur le sophisme de composition, et des écrits des économistes sur cette erreur en écon-omie. Je soutiens que le «sophisme de composition» est un concept problé-matique, car il ne désigne pas un type distinctif d'argument, mais plutôt une pluralité d'arguments, et ne constitue pas un type distinctif d'erreur, mais plutôt réduit les raisonnements du micro au macro à une simplification excessive. Enfin, je propose d'effectuer d'autres essais de cette affirmation en m'appuyant sur des exemples concernant la dette publique vs privée en économie; des tendances oligarchiques dans la politique et l'émer-gence d'ensembles sociétaux en sociologie.

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