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Equivocation
In logic, equivocation ("calling two different things by the same name") is an informal fallacy resulting from the use of a particular word or expression in multiple senses within an argument. It is a type of ambiguity that stems from a phrase having two or more distinct meanings, not from the grammar or structure of the sentence. Fallacy of four terms Equivocation in a syllogism (a chain of reasoning) produces a fallacy of four terms (). Below is an example: : Since only man umanis rational. : And no woman is a man ale : Therefore, no woman is rational. The first instance of "man" implies the entire human species, while the second implies just those who are male. Motte-and-bailey fallacy Equivocation can also be used to conflate two positions which share similarities, one modest and easy to defend and one much more controversial. The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position. See ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mental Reservation
Mental reservation (or mental equivocation) is an ethical theory and a doctrine in moral theology which recognizes the "lie of necessity", and holds that when there is a conflict between justice and veracity (ethics), telling the truth, it is justice that should prevail. The doctrine is a special branch of casuistry (case-based reasoning) developed in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. While associated with the Jesuits, it did not originate with them. It is a theory debated by moral theologians, but not part of Canon law. Secular use It was argued in moral theology, and now in ethics, that mental reservation was a way to fulfill obligations both to tell the truth and to keep secrets from those not entitled to know them (for example, because of the Seal of the Confessional and the Catholic Church, seal of the confessional or other clauses of confidentiality). Mental reservation, however, is regarded as unjustifiable without grave reason for withholding the truth. This condi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Informal Fallacy
Informal fallacies are a type of incorrect argument in natural language. The source of the error is not just due to the ''form'' of the argument, as is the case for formal fallacies, but can also be due to their ''content'' and ''context''. Fallacies, despite being incorrect, usually ''appear'' to be correct and thereby can seduce people into accepting and using them. These misleading appearances are often connected to various aspects of natural language, such as ambiguous or vague expressions, or the assumption of implicit premises instead of making them explicit. Traditionally, a great number of informal fallacies have been identified, including the fallacy of equivocation, the fallacy of amphiboly, the Fallacy of composition, fallacies of composition and Fallacy of division, division, the false dilemma, the fallacy of begging the question, the ad hominem fallacy and the appeal to ignorance. There is no general agreement as to how the various fallacies are to be grouped into cate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evasion (ethics)
In ethics, evasion is an act of deception where a true statement is irrelevant or leads to a false conclusion. For instance, a man knows that a woman is in a room in the building because he heard her, but in answer to a question as to whether she is present, says "I have not seen her", thereby avoiding both lying and making a revelation. Evasion is described as a way to fulfil an obligation to tell the truth while keeping secrets from those not entitled to know the truth. Evasions are closely related to equivocations and mental reservations; indeed, some statements fall under both descriptions. Question dodging Question dodging is a rhetorical technique involving the intentional avoidance of answering a question. This may occur when the person questioned either does not know the answer and wants to avoid embarrassment, or when the person is being interrogated or questioned in debate, and wants to avoid giving a direct response. A famous example of question dodging in a UK c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
If-by-whiskey
Noah S. "Soggy" Sweat Jr. (October 2, 1922February 23, 1996) was an American judge, law professor, and state representative in Mississippi, notable for his 1952 speech on the floor of the Mississippi state legislature concerning whiskey. Reportedly the speech took Sweat two and a half months to write.Clarion Ledger , "On June 3, Soggy's speech will come to life" May 25, 2003 The speech is renowned for the grand rhetorical terms in which it seems to come down firmly and decisively on both sides of the question. The speech gave rise to the phrase "if-by-whiskey", used to illustrate such equivocation in argument. Career Sweat was elected to the Mississippi House in 1947, at the age of 24. He served only one fiv ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fallacy Of Four Terms
The fallacy of four terms () is the formal fallacy that occurs when a syllogism has four (or more) terms rather than the requisite three, rendering it invalid. Definition Categorical syllogisms always have three terms: :Major premise: Weapons are dangerous. :Minor premise: Knives are weapons. :Conclusion: Knives are dangerous. Here, the three terms are: "weapon", "dangerous", and "knife". Using four terms invalidates the syllogism: :Major premise: Weapons are dangerous. :Minor premise: Balloons are round. :Conclusion: Balloons are dangerous. Notice that there are four terms: "weapon", "dangerous", "balloon", and "round". The two premises do not connect "balloons" with "dangerous", so the reasoning is invalid. Two premises are not enough to connect four different terms, since in order to establish connection, there must be one term common to both premises. In everyday reasoning, the fallacy of four terms occurs most frequently by equivocation: using the same word or p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Etymological Fallacy
An etymological fallacy is an argument of equivocation, arguing that a word is defined by its etymology, and that its customary usage is therefore incorrect. History Ancient Greeks believed that there was a "true meaning" of a word, distinct from common use. There is evidence that a similar belief existed among ancient Vedic scholars. In modern days, this fallacy can be found in some arguments of language purists. Occurrence and examples An etymological fallacy becomes possible when a word's meaning shifts over time from its original meaning. Such changes can include a narrowing or widening of scope or a change of connotation (amelioration or pejoration). In some cases, modern usage can shift to the point where the new meaning has no evident connection to its etymon. ''Antisemitism'' The term ''antisemitism'' refers to anti-Jewish beliefs and practices.. Extract from ''Islam in History: Ideas, Men and Events in the Middle East'', The Library Press, 1973. It replaced th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Circumlocution
Circumlocution (also called circumduction, circumvolution, periphrasis, kenning, or ambage) is the use of an unnecessarily large number of words to express an idea. It is sometimes necessary in communication (for example, to work around lexical gaps that might otherwise lead to untranslatability), but it can also be undesirable (when an uncommon or easily misunderstood figure of speech is used). It can also come in the form of roundabout speech wherein many words are used to describe something that already has a common and concise term (for example, saying "a tool used for cutting things such as paper and hair" instead of "scissors"). Most dictionaries use circumlocution to define words. Circumlocution is often used by people with aphasia and people learning a new language, where simple terms can be paraphrased to aid learning or communication (for example, paraphrasing the word "grandfather" as "the father of one's father"). Among other usages, circumlocution can be used to constru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
When A White Horse Is Not A Horse
The White Horse Dialogue in Chinese philosophy is a debate between two unnamed speakers on a proposition often translated as 'a white horse is not a horse'. It appears in the Warring States period text ''Gongsun Longzi'' attributed to Gongsun Long, grouped under the philosophical School of Names in later taxonomies. The original text The dialogue constitutes a chapter of the eponymous ''Gongsun Longzi''. The purported author, also known as "Master Gongsun Long" (), was counted by later scholars among the School of Names in the Hundred Schools of Thought. Most of Gongsun's writings have been lost; the received ''Gongsun Longzi'' text contains only six of the recorded fourteen original chapters. Parts of the dialogue are dislocated and a small number of words are theorized to have been lost early in the text's transmission history. Thus, some commentators and translators rearrange some sentences for clarity. The dialogue is between two unnamed speakers: This dialogue continues w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syntactic Ambiguity
Syntactic ambiguity, also known as structural ambiguity, amphiboly, or amphibology, is characterized by the potential for a sentence to yield multiple interpretations due to its ambiguous syntax. This form of ambiguity is not derived from the varied meanings of individual words but rather from the relationships among words and clauses within a sentence, concealing interpretations beneath the word order. Consequently, a sentence presents as syntactically ambiguous when it permits reasonable derivation of several possible grammatical structures by an observer. In jurisprudence, the interpretation of syntactically ambiguous phrases in statutory texts or contracts may be done by courts. Occasionally, claims based on highly improbable interpretations of such ambiguities are dismissed as being frivolous litigation and without merit. The term ''parse forest'' refers to the collection of all possible syntactic structures, known as '' parse trees'', that can represent the ambiguous sente ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Principle Of Explosion
In classical logic, intuitionistic logic, and similar logical systems, the principle of explosion is the law according to which any statement can be proven from a contradiction. That is, from a contradiction, any proposition (including its negation) can be inferred; this is known as deductive explosion. The proof of this principle was first given by 12th-century French philosopher William of Soissons. Due to the principle of explosion, the existence of a contradiction ( inconsistency) in a formal axiomatic system is disastrous; since any statement can be proven, it trivializes the concepts of truth and falsity. Around the turn of the 20th century, the discovery of contradictions such as Russell's paradox at the foundations of mathematics thus threatened the entire structure of mathematics. Mathematicians such as Gottlob Frege, Ernst Zermelo, Abraham Fraenkel, and Thoralf Skolem put much effort into revising set theory to eliminate these contradictions, resulting in the mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polysemy
Polysemy ( or ; ) is the capacity for a Sign (semiotics), sign (e.g. a symbol, morpheme, word, or phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses. Polysemy is distinct from ''monosemy'', where a word has a single meaning. Polysemy is distinct from homonymy—or homophone, homophony—which is an Accident (philosophy), accidental similarity between two or more words (such as ''bear'' the animal, and the verb wikt:bear#Etymology 2, ''bear''); whereas homonymy is a mere linguistic coincidence, polysemy is not. In discerning whether a given set of meanings represent polysemy or homonymy, it is often necessary to look at the history of the word to see whether the two meanings are historically related. Lexicography, Dictionary writers often list polysemes (words or phrases with different, but related, senses) in the same entry (that is, under the same headword) and enter homonyms as separate headwords (usually with a numbering convention such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plausible Deniability
Plausible deniability is the ability of people, typically senior officials in a formal or informal chain of command, to deny knowledge or responsibility for actions committed by or on behalf of members of their organizational hierarchy. They may do so because of a lack of evidence that can confirm their participation, even if they were personally involved in or at least willfully ignorant of the actions. If illegal or otherwise disreputable and unpopular activities become public, high-ranking officials may deny any awareness of such acts to insulate themselves and shift the blame onto the agents who carried out the acts, as they are confident that their doubters will be unable to prove otherwise. The lack of evidence to the contrary ostensibly makes the denial plausible (credible), but sometimes, it makes any accusations only unactionable. The term typically implies forethought, such as intentionally setting up the conditions for the plausible avoidance of responsibility for o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
