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Sophisms (Aristotle)
''Sophistical Refutations'' ( el, Σοφιστικοὶ Ἔλεγχοι, Sophistikoi Elenchoi; la, De Sophisticis Elenchis) is a text in Aristotle's ''Organon'' in which he identified thirteen fallacies.Sometimes listed as twelve. According to Aristotle, this is the first work to treat the subject of deductive reasoning in ancient Greece (''Soph. Ref.'', 34, 183b34 ff.). Overview ''On Sophistical Refutations'' consists of 34 chapters. The book naturally falls in two parts: chapters concerned with tactics for the Questioner (3–8 and 12–15) and chapters concerned with tactics for the Answerer (16–32). Besides, there is an introduction (1–2), an interlude (9–11), and a conclusion (33–34). Fallacies identified The fallacies Aristotle identifies in Chapter 4 (formal fallacies) and 5 (informal fallacies) of this book are the following: :Fallacies in the language or formal fallacies (''in dictionem'') # Equivocation # Amphibology # Composition # Division # Accent # Fig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy within the Lyceum and the wider Aristotelian tradition. His writings cover many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, meteorology, geology, and government. Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him. It was above all from his teachings that the West inherited its intellectual lexicon, as well as problems and methods of inquiry. As a result, his philosophy has exerted a unique influence on almost every form of knowledge in the West and it continues to be a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion. Little is known about his life. Aristotle was born in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Accident (fallacy)
The fallacy of accident (also called destroying the exception or ''a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid'') is an informal fallacy and a deductively valid but unsound argument occurring in a statistical syllogism (an argument based on a generalization) when an exception to a rule of thumb is ignored. It is one of the thirteen fallacies originally identified by Aristotle in ''Sophistical Refutations''. The fallacy occurs when one attempts to apply a general rule to an irrelevant situation. For example: This fallacy may occur when limited generalizations ("some; sometimes and somewhere") are mixed with A-type categorical statements ("all; always and everywhere"), often when no quantifiers like "some" or "many" or qualifiers such as "rarely" are used to mark off what is or may be excepted in the generalization. Related inductive fallacies include overwhelming exceptions and hasty generalizations. See faulty generalization. The opposing kind of ''dicto simplicite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Affirming The Consequent
Affirming the consequent, sometimes called converse error, fallacy of the converse, or confusion of necessity and sufficiency, is a formal fallacy of taking a true conditional statement (e.g., "If the lamp were broken, then the room would be dark"), and invalidly inferring its converse ("The room is dark, so the lamp is broken"), even though that statement may not be true. This arises when a consequent ("the room would be dark") has other possible antecedents (for example, "the lamp is in working order, but is switched off" or "there is no lamp in the room"). Converse errors are common in everyday thinking and communication and can result from, among other causes, communication issues, misconceptions about logic, and failure to consider other causes. The opposite statement, denying the consequent, ''is'' a valid form of argument (modus tollens). Formal description Affirming the consequent is the action of taking a true statement P \to Q and invalidly concluding its converse Q \ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
False Cause
The questionable cause—also known as causal fallacy, false cause, or ''non causa pro causa'' ("non-cause for cause" in Latin)—is a category of informal fallacies in which a cause is incorrectly identified. For example: "Every time I go to sleep, the sun goes down. Therefore, my going to sleep causes the sun to set." The two events may coincide, but have no causal connection. Fallacies of questionable cause include: * Circular cause and consequence * Correlation implies causation (''cum hoc, ergo propter hoc'') ** Third-cause fallacy ** Wrong direction * Fallacy of the single cause * ''Post hoc ergo propter hoc'' * Regression fallacy * Texas sharpshooter fallacy * Jumping to conclusions * Association fallacy * ''Reductio ad hitlerum'' * Magical thinking Magical thinking, or superstitious thinking, is the belief that unrelated events are causally connected despite the absence of any plausible causal link between them, particularly as a result of supernatural effects. Examples ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Begging The Question
In classical rhetoric and logic, begging the question or assuming the conclusion (Latin: ') is an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it. For example: * "Green is the best color because it is the greenest of all colors" This statement claims that the color green is the best because it is the greenest – which it presupposes is the best. It is a type of circular reasoning: an argument that requires that the desired conclusion be true. This often occurs in an indirect way such that the fallacy's presence is hidden, or at least not easily apparent.Herrick (2000) 248. History The original phrase used by Aristotle from which ''begging the question'' descends is: τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς (or sometimes ἐν ἀρχῇ) αἰτεῖν, "asking for the initial thing". Aristotle's intended meaning is closely tied to the type of dialectical argument he discusses in his '' Topics'', book VIII: a formalized ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irrelevant Conclusion
An irrelevant conclusion, also known as ''ignoratio elenchi'' () or missing the point, is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may or may not be logically valid and sound, but (whose conclusion) fails to address the issue in question. It falls into the broad class of relevance fallacies. The irrelevant conclusion should not be confused with formal fallacy, an argument whose conclusion does not follow from its premises; instead, it is that despite its formal consistency it is not relevant to the subject being talked about. Overview ''Ignoratio elenchi'' is one of the fallacies identified by Aristotle in his ''Organon''. In a broader sense he asserted that all fallacies are a form of ''ignoratio elenchi''. ● Example 1: A and B are debating as to whether criticizing indirectly has any merit in general. attempts to support their position with an argument that politics ought not to be criticized on social media because the message is not directly being heard b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Secundum Quid
''Secundum quid'' (also called ''secundum quid et simpliciter'', meaning " hat is truein a certain respect and hat is trueabsolutely") is a type of informal fallacy that occurs when the arguer fails to recognize the difference between rules of thumb (''soft'' generalizations, heuristics that hold true ''as a general rule'' but leave room for exceptions) and categorical propositions, rules that hold true universally. Since it ignores the limits, or qualifications, of rules of thumb, this fallacy is also named ignoring qualifications. The expression misuse of a principle can be used as well. Example The arguer cites only the cases that support his point, conveniently omitting Bach, Beethoven, Brahms etc. Compare with: In popular culture The following quatrain can be attributed to C. H. Talbot: I talked in terms whose sense was hid, ''Dividendo, componendo et secundum quid''; Now ''secundum quid'' is a wise remark And it earned my reputation as a learned clerk. Types Inst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Figure Of Speech
A figure of speech or rhetorical figure is a word or phrase that intentionally deviates from ordinary language use in order to produce a rhetorical effect. Figures of speech are traditionally classified into '' schemes,'' which vary the ordinary sequence of words, and '' tropes,'' where words carry a meaning other than what they ordinarily signify. An example of a scheme is a polysyndeton: the repetition of a conjunction before every element in a list, whereas the conjunction typically would appear only before the last element, as in "Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!"—emphasizing the danger and number of animals more than the prosaic wording with only the second "and". An example of a trope is the metaphor, describing one thing as something that it clearly is not in order to lead the mind to compare them, in "All the world's a stage." Four rhetorical operations Classical rhetoricians classified figures of speech into four categories or :Jansen, Jeroen (2008) Imitatio'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Organon
The ''Organon'' ( grc, Ὄργανον, meaning "instrument, tool, organ") is the standard collection of Aristotle's six works on logical analysis and dialectic. The name ''Organon'' was given by Aristotle's followers, the Peripatetics. The six works are as follows: Constitution of the texts The order of the works is not chronological (which is now hard to determine) but was deliberately chosen by Theophrastus to constitute a well-structured system. Indeed, parts of them seem to be a scheme of a lecture on logic. The arrangement of the works was made by Andronicus of Rhodes around 40 BC. Aristotle's ''Metaphysics'' has some points of overlap with the works making up the ''Organon'' but is not traditionally considered part of it; additionally, there are works on logic attributed, with varying degrees of plausibility, to Aristotle that were not known to the Peripatetics. # The ''Categories'' (Latin: ) introduces Aristotle's 10-fold classification of that which exists: s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Accent (fallacy)
The fallacy of accent (also referred to as ''accentus'', from its Latin denomination, and misleading accent) is a type of ambiguity that arises when the meaning of a sentence is changed by placing an unusual prosodic stress, or when, in a written passage, it is left unclear which word the emphasis was supposed to fall on. Later writers have extended the fallacy to ambiguity caused in sentences due to grammar as well. History Among the thirteen types of fallacies in his book ''Sophistical Refutations'', Aristotle lists a fallacy he calls (''prosody''), later translated in Latin as ''accentus''. While the passage is considered obscure, it is commonly interpreted as referring to the ambiguity that emerges when a word can be mistaken for another by changing suprasegmental phonemes, which in Ancient Greek correspond to diacritics (accents and breathings). Since words stripped from their diacritics do not exist in the Ancient Greek language, this notion of ''accent'' was troublesome f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fallacy Of Division
A fallacy of division is an informal fallacy that occurs when one reasons that something that is true for a whole must also be true of all or some of its parts. An example: # The second grade in Jefferson Elementary eats a lot of ice cream # Carlos is a second-grader in Jefferson Elementary # Therefore, Carlos eats a lot of ice cream The converse of this fallacy is called fallacy of composition, which arises when one fallaciously attributes a property of some part of a thing to the thing as a whole. If a system as a whole has some property that none of its constituents has (or perhaps, it has it but not as a ''result'' of some constituent's having that property), this is sometimes called an '' emergent'' property of the system. The term ''mereological fallacy'' refers to approximately the same incorrect inference that properties of a whole are also properties of its parts. History Both the fallacy of division and the fallacy of composition were addressed by Aristotle in '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
