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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Semantical fallaciousness results from the ambiguity of terms used in an argument

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 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 for 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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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
    ?
    • 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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