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    Semantical fallaciousness results from the ambiguity of t... — Carmelics
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    Semantical fallaciousness results from the ambiguity of terms used in an argument

    Philosophy of Language
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Under one sense of the ambiguous term the premises are false and the conclusion follows, but under the other sense the premises are true and the conclusion does not follow
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    • 2.When the sense that makes the premises true is adopted, the argument reduces to formal fallaciousness
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Grice's theory of conversational implicature shows that apparent semantic ambiguity often resolves through pragmatic context, not formal analysis.
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    • 2.If hearers reliably recover intended meaning via cooperative principles, the argument's equivocation may fail to occur in actual communicative practice.
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    • 3.A fallacy that never deceives a competent reasoner in context lacks the epistemic harm that defines fallaciousness as a meaningful logical category.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Quine's thesis of the indeterminacy of translation entails that semantic content is never fully determinate, making 'ambiguity' a matter of degree, not a binary property.
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    • 2.If ambiguity admits of degrees, the boundary between genuinely fallacious equivocation and legitimate analogical inference becomes unprincipled and theory-dependent.
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    Topics

    Philosophy of Language

    Connections

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    Truth & Knowledge1 linked

    Related

    A fallacy that never deceives a competent reasoner in context lacks the epistemi...Grice's theory of conversational implicature shows that apparent semantic ambigu...If ambiguity admits of degrees, the boundary between genuinely fallacious equivo...If hearers reliably recover intended meaning via cooperative principles, the arg...
    +3 moreShow less
    Quine's thesis of the indeterminacy of translation entails that semantic content...Under one sense of the ambiguous term the premises are false and the conclusion ...When the sense that makes the premises true is adopted, the argument reduces to ...

    Similar

    Ambiguous use of a term can create the illusion that a fallacious argu...84%Semi-logical fallacies mostly trade on ambiguous middle terms83%Hamblin presented the definition of fallacy as 'an argument that seems...83%Polysemy is the most common mechanism by which fallacious arguments ap...82%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: fallacies
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    Finocchiaro distinguishes six ways in which arguments can be fallacious. (1) Formal fallaciousness is simply the case where the conclusion does not follow validly from the premises; this type of error can be demonstrated by producing a suitable analogous counter-example in which the premises are true and the conclusion is false. (2) Explanatory fallaciousness occurs when a specified conclusion follows with no more certainty from the given premises than does a rival conclusion; it occurs most oft
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit