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 debate in which the defending party asserts a thesis that the attacking party must attempt to refute by asking yes-or-no questions and deducing some inconsistency between the responses and the original thesis.

In this stylized form of debate, the proposition that the answerer undertakes to defend is called "the initial thing" (τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς, τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ) and one of the rules of the debate is that the questioner cannot simply ask for it (that would be trivial and uninteresting). Aristotle discusses this in Sophistical Refutations and in Prior Analytics book II, (64b, 34–65a 9, for circular reasoning see 57b, 18–59b, 1).

The stylized dialectical exchanges Aristotle discusses in the Topics included rules for scoring the debate, and one important issue was precisely the matter of asking for the initial thing—which included not just making the actual thesis adopted by the answerer into a question, but also making a question out of a sentence that was too close to that thesis (for example, PA II 16).

The term was translated into English from Latin in the 16th century. The Latin version, petitio principii, "asking for the starting point", can be interpreted in different ways. Petitio (from peto), in the post-classical context in which the phrase arose, means assuming or postulating, but in the older classical sense means petition, request or beseeching.[1][4] Principii, genitive of principium, means beginning, basis or premise (of an argument). Literally petitio principii means "assuming the premise" or "assuming the original point".

The Latin phrase comes from the Greek τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ αἰτεῖσθαι (to en archei aiteisthai, "asking the original point")[5] in Aristotle's Prior Analytics II xvi 64b28–65a26:

Begging or assuming the point at issue consists (to take the expression in its widest sense) [of] failing to demonstrate the required proposition. But there are several other ways in which this may happen; for example, if the argument has not taken syllogistic form at all, he may argue from premises which are less known or equally unknown, or he may establish the antecedent by means of its consequents; for demonstration proceeds from what is more certain and is prior. Now begging the question is none of these. […] If, however, the relation of B to C is such that they are identical, or that they are clearly convertible, or that one applies to the other, then he is begging the point at issue…. [B]egging the question is proving what is not self-evident by means of itself…either because predicates which are identical belong to the same subject, or because the same predicate belongs to subjects which are identical.

— Aristotle, Hugh Tredennick (trans.) Prior Analytics

>>3642775

Aristotle's distinction between apodictic science and other forms of non-demonstrative knowledge rests on an epistemology and metaphysics wherein appropriate first principles become apparent to the trained dialectician:

Aristotle's advice in S.E. 27 for resolving fallacies of Begging the Question is brief. If one realizes that one is being asked to concede the original point, one should refuse to do so, even if the point being asked is a reputable belief. On the other hand, if one fails to realize that one has conceded the point at issue and the questioner uses the concession to produce the apparent refutation, then one should turn the tables on the sophistical opponent by oneself pointing out the fallacy committed. In dialectical exchange it is a worse mistake to be caught asking for the original point than to have inadvertently granted such a request. The answerer in such a position has failed to detect when different utterances mean the same thing. The questioner, if he did not realize he was asking the original point, has committed the same error. But if he has knowingly asked for the original point, then he reveals himself to be ontologically confused: he has mistaken what is non-self-explanatory (known through other things) to be something self-explanatory (known through itself). In pointing this out to the false reasoner, one is not just pointing out a tactical psychological misjudgment by the questioner. It is not simply that the questioner falsely thought that the original point, if placed under the guise of a semantic equivalent, or a logical equivalent, or a covering universal, or divided up into exhaustive parts, would be more persuasive to the answerer. Rather, the questioner falsely thought that a non-self-explanatory fact about the world was an explanatory first principle. For Aristotle, that certain facts are self-explanatory while others are not is not a reflection solely of the cognitive abilities of humans. It is primarily a reflection of the structure of noncognitive reality. In short, a successful resolution of such a fallacy requires a firm grasp of the correct explanatory powers of things. Without a knowledge of which things are self-explanatory and which are not, the reasoner is liable to find a question-begging argument persuasive.[5]

— Scott Gregory Schreiber, Aristotle on False Reasoning: Language and the World in the Sophistical Refutations

Thomas Fowler believed that Petitio Principii would be more properly called Petitio Quæsiti, which is literally "begging the question".[6]

"begging the question" is an attempt to assert that C → C. In two variables, C (claim) and P (premise), it attempts to pass (C → P) → C as the valid claim P → C.

>>3642798

>>3642791

This is a form of circular reasoning, and may involve any number of variables.

When the fallacy involves only a single variable, it is sometimes called a hysteron proteron[8][9][10], as in the statement:

"Opium induces sleep because it has a soporific quality."[11]

This form of the fallacy may not be immediately obvious. Linguistic variations in syntax, sentence structure and literary device may conceal it, as may other factors involved in an argument's delivery. It may take the form of an unstated premise which is essential but not identical to the conclusion, or is "controversial or questionable for the same reasons that typically might lead someone to question the conclusion":[12]

…[S]eldom is anyone going to simply place the conclusion word-for-word into the premises … Rather, an arguer might use phraseology that conceals the fact that the conclusion is masquerading as a premise. The conclusion is rephrased to look different and is then placed in the premises.

— Paul Herrick[13]

For example, one can obscure the fallacy by first making a statement in concrete terms, then attempting to pass off an identical statement, delivered in abstract terms, as evidence for the original.[11] One could also "bring forth a proposition expressed in words of Saxon origin, and give as a reason for it the very same proposition stated in words of Norman origin",[14] as here:

"To allow every man an unbounded freedom of speech must always be, on the whole, advantageous to the State, for it is highly conducive to the interests of the community that each individual should enjoy a liberty perfectly unlimited of expressing his sentiments."[15]

When the fallacy of begging the question is committed in more than one step, some authors dub it circulus in probando (reasoning in a circle)[8][16] or, more commonly, circular reasoning.

There is no one Eskimo language. A number of cultures are referred to as Eskimo, and a number of different languages are termed Eskimo–Aleut languages. These languages may have more or fewer words for "snow", or perhaps more importantly, more or fewer words that are commonly applied to snow, depending on which language is considered.

Three distinct word roots with the meaning "snow" are reconstructed for the Proto-Eskimo language[19] qaniɣ 'falling snow', aniɣu 'fallen snow', and apun 'snow on the ground'. These three stems are found in all Inuit languages and dialects—except for West Greenlandic, which lacks aniɣu.[20] The Alaskan and Siberian Yupik people (among others) however, are not Inuit peoples, nor are their languages Inuit or Inupiaq, but all are classifiable as Eskimos, lending further ambiguity to the "Eskimo Words for Snow" debate.

Closely connected with begging the question is the fallacy of circular reasoning (circulus in probando), a fallacy in which the reasoner begins with the conclusion.[20] The individual components of a circular argument can be logically valid because if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true, and does not lack relevance. However, circular reasoning is not persuasive because a listener who doubts the conclusion also doubts the premise that leads to it.[21]

Begging the question is similar to the complex question (also known as trick question or fallacy of many questions): a question that, to be valid, requires the truth of another question that has not been established. For example, "Which color dress is Mary wearing?" may be fallacious because it presupposes that Mary is wearing a dress. Unless it has previously been established that her outfit is a dress, the question is fallacious because she could be wearing a pantsuit.[22][23]

Another related fallacy is ignoratio elenchi or irrelevant conclusion: an argument that fails to address the issue in question, but appears to do so. An example might be a situation where A and B are debating whether the law permits A to do something. If A attempts to support his position with an argument that the law ought to allow him to do the thing in question, then he is guilty of ignoratio elenchi.[24]

Many modern English speakers use beg the question to mean "bear the question", "suggest the question," "raise the question", "invite the question", "evade the question", or even "ignore the question", and follow that phrase with the question, for example: "I weigh 120 kg and have severely clogged arteries, which begs the question: why have I not started exercising?" For grammatical reasons and because the term has a specific, different meaning in philosophy, logic, and law, nearly all commenters note that such usage is mistaken, or at best, unclear

For example, one can obscure the fallacy by first making a statement in concrete terms, then attempting to pass off an identical statement, delivered in abstract terms, as evidence for the original.[11] One could also "bring forth a proposition expressed in words of Saxon origin, and give as a reason for it the very same proposition stated in words of Norman origin",[14] as here:

"To allow every man an unbounded freedom of speech must always be, on the whole, advantageous to the State, for it is highly conducive to the interests of the community that each individual should enjoy a liberty perfectly unlimited of expressing his sentiments."[15]

When the fallacy of begging the question is committed in more than one step, some authors dub it circulus in probando (reasoning in a circle)[8][16] or, more commonly, circular reasoning.

Begging the question is not considered a formal fallacy (an argument that is defective because it uses an incorrect deductive step). Rather, it is a type of informal fallacy that is logically valid but unpersuasive, in that it fails to prove anything other than what is already assumed.

A sorites is a specific kind of polysyllogism in which the predicate of each proposition is the subject of the next premise. Example:

All lions are big cats.

All big cats are predators.

All predators are carnivores.

Therefore, all lions are carnivores.

The word "sorites" /sɒˈraɪtiːz/ comes from Ancient Greek: σωρίτης, "heaped up", from σωρός "heap" or "pile". In other words, a sorites is a heap of propositions chained together. A sorites polysyllogism should not be confused with the sorites paradox, a.k.a. fallacy of the heap.

Lewis Carroll uses sorites in his book Symbolic Logic (1896). Here is an example:[1]

No experienced person is incompetent;

Jenkins is always blundering;

No competent person is always blundering.

∴ Jenkins is inexperienced.

Carroll's example may be translated thus

All experienced persons are competent persons.

No competent persons are blunderers.

Jenkins is a blunderer.

∴ Jenkins is not an experienced person.

Anadiplosis (/ænədɪˈploʊsɪs/ AN-ə-di-PLOH-sis; Greek: ἀναδίπλωσις, anadíplōsis, "a doubling, folding up") is the repetition of the last word of a preceding clause.[1] The word is used at the end of a sentence and then used again at the beginning of the next sentence.[2]

Examples

Noust in the grass / grass in the wind / wind on the lark / lark for the sun / Sun through the sea / sea in the heart / heart in its noust / nothing is lost —John Glenday, Noust

"Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering." —Yoda.

"For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas and hath not left his peer." —John Milton, Lycidas

"Queeg: 'Aboard my ship, excellent performance is standard. Standard performance is sub-standard. Sub-standard performance is not permitted to exist.'" —Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny.

"Mine be thy love, and thy love's use their treasure." —Shakespeare, Sonnet 20.

"Having power makes [totalitarian leadership] isolated; isolation breeds insecurity; insecurity breeds suspicion and fear; suspicion and fear breed violence." —Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Permanent Purge: Politics in Soviet Totalitarianism

"What I present here is what I remember of the letter, and what I remember of the letter I remember verbatim (including that awful French)." —Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

"The years to come seemed waste of breath, / A waste of breath the years behind" - William Butler Yeats "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death"

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny.” [3]>>3643023

Semiosis (from the Greek: σημείωσις, sēmeíōsis, a derivation of the verb σημειῶ, sēmeiô, "to mark") is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. Briefly – semiosis is sign process. The term was introduced by Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) to describe a process that interprets signs as referring to their objects, as described in his theory of sign relations, or semiotics. Semiosis is triadic and cyclic[citation needed]. Other theories of sign processes are sometimes carried out under the heading of semiology, following on the work of Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913).

>>3643043

>>3643043

Semiosis is the performance element involving signs. Although a human can communicate many things unintentionally, individuals usually speak or write to elicit some kind of response. Yet there is little real explanation of how semiosis produces its effects, which is odd given that the word "sign" is in everyday use and most people would understand what it means. But semiotics has not offered clear technical definitions, nor is there agreement about how signs should be classified.

As an insect or animal, human or otherwise, moves through its environment (sometimes termed the umwelt), all the senses collect data that are made available to the brain. However, to prevent sensory overload, only salient data will receive the full attention of the cognitive elements of the mind. This indicates that a part of the process must be controlled by a model of the real world capable of ranking data elements in terms of their significance and filtering out the data irrelevant to survival. A sign cannot function until the brain or audience distinguishes it from the background noise. When this happens, the sign then triggers cognitive activity to interpret the data input and so convert it into meaningful information. This would suggest that, in the semiosphere, the process of semiosis goes through the following cycle:

The plant, insect, or animal with the need to communicate (e.g., to recognise an object of food) will know what needs to be said and assess the best means of saying it (e.g., starting a searching behaviour);

This information will then be encoded and relevant muscle groups will effect transmission — although to some extent intentional in the human, the actual movements of the body are autonomic, i.e. the individual is not aware of moving individual muscles, but achieves the desired result by an act of will (see H. L. A. Hart on the nature of an action);

The audience filters ambient data and perceives the uttered code as a grouping of signs;

The audience then interprets the signs (sometimes termed decoding) to attribute meaning. This involves matching the signs received against existing patterns and their meanings held in memory (i.e. it is learned and understood within the community). In plants, insects and animals, the results of a successful interpretation will be an observable response to the stimuli perceived.

Consequentia mirabilis (Latin for "admirable consequence"), also known as Clavius's Law, is used in traditional and classical logic to establish the truth of a proposition from the inconsistency of its negation.[1] It is thus similar to reductio ad absurdum, but it can prove a proposition true using just its negation. It states that if a proposition is a consequence of its negation, then it is true, for consistency. It can thus be demonstrated without using any other principle, but that of consistency. (Barnes[2] claims in passing that the term 'consequentia mirabilis' refers only to the inference of the proposition from the inconsistency of its negation, and that the term 'Lex Clavia' (or Clavius' Law) refers to the inference of the proposition's negation from the inconsistency of the proposition.)

In formal notation: {\displaystyle (\neg A\rightarrow A)\rightarrow A} (\neg A\rightarrow A)\rightarrow A which is equivalent to {\displaystyle (\neg \neg A\lor A)\rightarrow A} (\neg \neg A\lor A)\rightarrow A.

Consequentia mirabilis was a pattern of argument popular in 17th century Europe that first appeared in a fragment of Aristotle's Protrepticus: "If we ought to philosophise, then we ought to philosophise; and if we ought not to philosophise, then we ought to philosophise (i.e. in order to justify this view); in any case, therefore, we ought to philosophise."[3]

The most famous example is perhaps the Cartesian cogito ergo sum: Even if one can question the validity of the thinking, no one can deny that they are thinking.

>>3643061

zoosemiotics).

Contents

1 Terminology

2 History

3 Formulations

4 Notable semioticians

5 Semiotics of dreaming

6 Current applications

7 Branches

7.1 Pictorial semiotics

7.2 Globalization

8 Gangs and graffiti

9 Main institutions

10 In popular culture

11 See also

12 References

12.1 Notes

12.2 Bibliography

13 External links

13.1 Peircean focus

13.2 Journals, book series—associations, centers

Terminology

The term derives from the Greek σημειωτικός sēmeiōtikos, "observant of signs"[4] (from σημεῖον sēmeion, "a sign, a mark")[5] and it was first used in English prior to 1676 by Henry Stubbes[6] (spelt semeiotics) in a very precise sense to denote the branch of medical science relating to the interpretation of signs.[7][8] John Locke used the term sem(e)iotike in book four, chapter 21 of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690).[9][10][11] Here he explains how science may be divided into three parts:

All that can fall within the compass of human understanding, being either, first, the nature of things, as they are in themselves, their relations, and their manner of operation: or, secondly, that which man himself ought to do, as a rational and voluntary agent, for the attainment of any end, especially happiness: or, thirdly, the ways and means whereby the knowledge of both the one and the other of these is attained and communicated; I think science may be divided properly into these three sorts.

— Locke, 1823/1963, p. 174

Locke then elaborates on the nature of this third category, naming it Σημειωτική (Semeiotike) and explaining it as "the doctrine of signs" in the following terms:

Nor is there any thing to be relied upon in Physick,[12] but an exact knowledge of medicinal physiology (founded on observation, not principles), semiotics, method of curing, and tried (not excogitated,[13] not commanding) medicines.

— Locke, 1823/1963, 4.21.4, p. 175

In the nineteenth century, Charles Sanders Peirce defined what he termed "semiotic" (which he sometimes spelled as "semeiotic") as the "quasi-necessary, or formal doctrine of signs", which abstracts "what must be the characters of all signs used by … an intelligence capable of learning by experience",[14] and which is philosophical logic pursued in terms of signs and sign processes.[15][16] The Peirce scholar and editor Max H. Fisch[17] claimed in 1978[18] that "semeiotic" was Peirce's own preferred rendering of Locke's σημιωτική.

Charles W. Morris followed Peirce in using the term "semiotic" and in extending the discipline beyond human communication to animal learning and use of signals.

Ferdinand de Saussure, however, founded his semiotics, which he called semiology, in the social sciences:

It is… possible to conceive of a science which studies the role of signs as part of social life. It would form part of social psychology, and hence of general psychology. We shall call it semiology (from the Greek semeîon, 'sign'). It would investigate the nature of signs and the laws governing them. Since it does not yet exist, one cannot say for certain that it will exist. But it has a right to exist, a place ready for it in advance. Linguistics is only one branch of this general science. The laws which semiology will discover will be laws applicable in linguistics, and linguistics will thus be assigned to a clearly defined place in the field of human knowledge.

— Cited in Chandler's "Semiotics for Beginners", Introduction.

The principle of explosion (Latin: ex falso (sequitur) quodlibet (EFQ), "from falsehood, anything (follows)", or ex contradictione (sequitur) quodlibet (ECQ), "from contradiction, anything (follows)"), or the principle of Pseudo-Scotus, is the law of classical logic, intuitionistic logic and similar logical systems, according to which any statement can be proven from a contradiction.[1] That is, once a contradiction has been asserted, any proposition (including their negations) can be inferred from it. This is known as deductive explosion.[2][3] The proof of this principle was first given by 12th century French philosopher William of Soissons.[4]

As a demonstration of the principle, consider two contradictory statements – "All lemons are yellow" and "Not all lemons are yellow", and suppose (for the sake of argument) that both are simultaneously true. If that is the case, anything can be proven, e.g. "unicorns exist", by using the following argument:

We know that "All lemons are yellow" as it is defined to be true.

Therefore, the statement that ("All lemons are yellow" OR "unicorns exist”) must also be true, since the first part is true.

However, if "Not all lemons are yellow" (and this is also defined to be true), unicorns must exist – otherwise statement 2 would be false (in rigor, given that at least one lemon exists). It has thus been "proven" that unicorns exist. The same could be applied to any assertion, including the statement "unicorns do not exist".

Due to the principle of explosion, the existence of a contradiction (inconsistency) in a formal axiomatic system is disastrous; since any statement can be proved true it trivializes the concepts of truth and falsity.[5] 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 modern Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory.

In a different solution to these problems, a few mathematicians have devised alternate theories of logic called paraconsistent logics, which eliminate the principle of explosion.[5] These allow some contradictory statements to be proved without affecting other proofs.

>>3643149

In symbolic logic, the principle of explosion can be expressed in the following way

{\displaystyle \forall P\forall Q:(P\land \lnot P)\vdash Q} {\displaystyle \forall P\forall Q:(P\land \lnot P)\vdash Q}

(For any statements P and Q, if P and not-P are both true, then Q is true)

Euphemism comes from the Greek word euphemia (εὐφημία) which refers to the use of 'words of good omen'; it is a compound of eû (εὖ), meaning 'good, well', and phḗmē (φήμη), meaning 'prophetic speech; rumour, talk'.[3] Eupheme is a reference to the female Greek spirit of words of praise and positivity, etc. The term euphemism itself was used as a euphemism by the ancient Greeks; with the meaning "to keep a holy silence" (speaking well by not speaking at all).

Reasons for using euphemisms vary by context and intent. Commonly, euphemisms are used to avoid directly addressing subjects that might be deemed negative or embarrassing. Euphemisms are also used to downplay the gravity of large-scale injustices, war crimes, or other events that warrant a pattern of avoidance in official statements or documents. For instance, one reason for the comparative scarcity of written evidence documenting the exterminations at Auschwitz, relative to their sheer number, is "directives for the extermination process obscured in bureaucratic euphemisms".[5]

The act of labeling a term as a euphemism can in itself be controversial, as in the following two examples:

Affirmative action, meaning a preference for minorities or the historically disadvantaged, usually in employment or academic admissions. This term is sometimes said to be a euphemism for reverse discrimination, or in the UK positive discrimination, which suggests an intentional bias that might be legally prohibited, or otherwise unpalatable.[6]

Enhanced interrogation is sometimes said to be a euphemism for torture. For example, columnist David Brooks called the use of this term for practices at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, and elsewhere an effort to "dull the moral sensibility".[7]

Epanalepsis (from the Greek ἐπανάληψις, epanálēpsis "repetition, resumption, taking up again"[1]) is the repetition of the initial part of a clause or sentence at the end of that same clause or sentence.[2] The beginning and the end of a sentence are two positions of emphasis, so special attention is placed on the phrase by repeating it in both places. Nested double-epanalepses are antimetaboles.

>>3643224

Phonetic modification

Phonetic euphemism is used to replace profanities, diminishing their intensity. Modifications include:

Shortening or "clipping" the term, such as Jeez (Jesus) and what the— ("what the hell")

Mispronunciations, such as frak, frig (both the preceding for "fuck"), what the fudge, what the truck (both "what the fuck"), oh my gosh ("oh my God"), frickin ("fucking"), darn ("damn"), oh shoot ("oh shit"), be-yotch ("bitch"), etc. This is also referred to as a minced oath.

Using first letters as replacements, such as SOB ("son of a bitch"), what the eff ("what the fuck"), S my D ("suck my dick"), BS ("bullshit"). Sometimes, the word "word" is added after it, such as F-word ("fuck"), S-word ("shit"), B-word ("bitch"), etc. Also, the letter can be phonetically respelled. For example, the word piss was shortened to pee (pronounced as the letter P) in this way.

Figures of speech

Ambiguous statements (it for excrement, the situation or a girl in trouble for pregnancy, passing away or passed or go for death, do it or come together in reference to a sexual act, tired and emotional for drunkenness)

Understatements (asleep for dead, drinking for consuming alcohol, hurt for injured, etc.)

Metaphors (beat the meat or choke the chicken or jerkin' the gherkin for masturbation, take a dump and take a leak for defecation and urination respectively)

Comparisons (buns for buttocks, weed for cannabis)

Metonymy (men's room for "men's toilet")

Rhetoric

Euphemism may be used as a rhetorical strategy, in which case its goal is to change the valence of a description from positive to negative.

Slang

See also: Slang

Minimisation is a type of deception[1] involving denial coupled with rationalisation in situations where complete denial is implausible. It is the opposite of exaggeration. Minimisation—downplaying the significance of an event or emotion—is a common strategy in dealing with feelings of guilt.[2] Words associated with minimisation include:

belittling

discounting

downplaying

euphemism

making light of

meiosis

minification

minimise

trivialising

underplaying

understating

Fallacious arguments from authority are also frequently the result of citing a non-authority as an authority.[29] An example of the fallacy of appealing to an authority in an unrelated field would be citing Albert Einstein as an authority for a determination on religion when his primary expertise was in physics.[29] The body of attributed authorities might not even welcome their citation, such as with the "More Doctors Smoke Camels" ad campaign.[30]

It is also a fallacious ad hominem argument to argue that a person presenting statements lacks authority and thus their arguments do not need to be considered.[31] As appeals to a perceived lack of authority, these types of argument are fallacious for much the same reasons as an appeal to authority.

Other related fallacious arguments assume that a person without status or authority is inherently reliable. For instance, the appeal to poverty is the fallacy of thinking that someone is more likely to be correct because they are poor.[32] When an argument holds that a conclusion is likely to be true precisely because the one who holds or is presenting it lacks authority, it is a fallacious appeal to the common man.[33]

Cognitive bias

The argument from authority is based on the idea that a perceived authority must know better and that the person should conform to their opinion. This has its roots in psychological cognitive biases[34] such as the Asch effect.[35][36] In repeated and modified instances of the Asch conformity experiments, it was found that high-status individuals create a stronger likelihood of a subject agreeing with an obviously false conclusion, despite the subject normally being able to clearly see that the answer was incorrect.[37]

Further, humans have been shown to feel strong emotional pressure to conform to authorities and majority positions. A repeat of the experiments by another group of researchers found that "Participants reported considerable distress under the group pressure", with 59% conforming at least once and agreeing with the clearly incorrect answer, whereas the incorrect answer was much more rarely given when no such pressures were present.[38]

Another study shining light on the psychological basis of the fallacy as it relates to perceived authorities are the Milgram experiments, which demonstrated that people are more likely to go along with something when it is presented by an authority.[39] In a variation of a study where the researchers did not wear a lab coat, thus reducing the perceived authority of the tasker, the obedience level dropped to 20% from the original rate, which had been higher than 50%. Obedience is encouraged by reminding the individual of what a perceived authority states and by showing them that their opinion goes against this authority.[39]

Scholars have noted that certain environments can produce an ideal situation for these processes to take hold, giving rise to groupthink.[40] In groupthink, individuals in a group feel inclined to minimize conflict and encourage conformity. Through an appeal to authority, a group member might present that opinion as a consensus and encourage the other group members to engage in groupthink by not disagreeing with this perceived consensus or authority.[41][42] One paper about the philosophy of mathematics for example notes that, within academia,

If…a person accepts our discipline, and goes through two or three years of graduate study in mathematics, he absorbs our way of thinking, and is no longer the critical outsider he once was…If the student is unable to absorb our way of thinking, we flunk him out, of course. If he gets through our obstacle course and then decides that our arguments are unclear or incorrect, we dismiss him as a crank, crackpot, or misfit.[43]

Corporate environments are similarly vulnerable to appeals to perceived authorities and experts leading to groupthink,[44] as are governments and militaries.[45]

Ipse dixit (Latin for "he said it himself") is an assertion without proof; or a dogmatic expression of opinion.[1]

The fallacy of defending a proposition by baldly asserting that it is "just how it is" distorts the argument by opting out of it entirely: the claimant declares an issue to be intrinsic, and not changeable.[2]

>>3643305

Manipulative abuse

Minimisation may take the form of a manipulative technique:

observed in abusers and manipulators to downplay their misdemeanors when confronted with irrefutable facts.[3][4]

observed in abusers and manipulators to downplay positive attributes (talents and skills etc.) of their victims.[5]

'Typical psychological defences exhibited by stalkers and guilty criminal suspects include denial, rationalisation, minimisation and projection of blame onto the victim'.[6]

A variation on minimisation as a manipulative technique is "claiming altruistic motives" such as saying "I don't do this because I am selfish, and for gain, but because I am a socially aware person interested in the common good".[7]

Cognitive distortion

Minimisation may also take the form of cognitive distortion:

that avoids acknowledging and dealing with negative emotions by reducing the importance and impact of events that give rise to those emotions.

that avoids conscious confrontation with the negative impacts of one's behavior on others by reducing the perception of such impacts.

that avoids interpersonal confrontation by reducing the perception of the impact of others' behavior on oneself.

Examples

saying that a taunt or insult was only a joke

a customer receiving a response to a complaint to a company for poor service being told that complaints like his from other customers were very rare when in fact they are common

suggesting that there are just a few bad apples or rogues in an organisation when in reality problems are widespread and systemic

School bullying sometimes minimised as a prank

School bullying is one form of victimisation or physical abuse which has sometimes been unofficially encouraged, ritualised or even minimised as a sort of prank by teachers or peers. The main difference between pranks and bullying is establishment of power inequity between the bully and the victim that lasts beyond the duration of the act.[8]

Understatements

Main article: Understatement

Understatement is a form of speech which contains an expression of less strength than what would be expected. Understatement is a staple of humour in English-speaking cultures, especially in British humour. In this humorous form, the understatement is expected to not be interpreted literally.

Related but separate is euphemism, where a polite phrase is used in place of a harsher or more offensive expression.[9]

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Self-esteem/depression

Redefining events to downplay their significance can be an effective way of preserving one's self-esteem.[10] One of the problems of depression (found in those with clinical, bipolar, and chronic depressive mood disorders, as well as cyclothymia) is the tendency to do the reverse: minimising the positive, discounting praise,[11] and dismissing one's own accomplishments.[12] On the other hand, one technique used by Alfred Adler to combat neurosis was to minimise the excessive significance the neurotic attaches to his own symptoms[13]—the narcissistic gains derived from pride in one's own illness.[14]

Social minimisation

Display rules expressing a group's general consensus about the display of feeling often involve minimising the amount of emotion one displays, as with a poker face.[15]

Social interchanges involving minor infringements often end with the 'victim' minimising the offence with a comment like 'Think nothing of it',[16] using so-called 'reduction words',[17] such as 'no big deal,' 'only a little,' 'merely,' or 'just', the latter particularly useful in denying intent.[18] On a wider scale, renaming things in a more benign or neutral form—'collateral damage' for death—is a form of minimisation.

Literary analogues

A scene in the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail involving the Black Knight character, demonstrates an absurd level of minimisation. For example, the knight's response to his having his left arm severed is "It's just a flesh wound." Compare with the Monty Python Dirty Fork sketch, which is the opposite extreme of absurdity (catastrophisation).

See also

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>>3643314

Dog-whistle politics is political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different, or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup. The analogy is to a dog whistle, whose ultrasonic whistling sound is heard by dogs but inaudible to humans.

The term can be distinguished from "code words" used in some specialist professions, in that dog-whistling is specific to the political realm. The messaging referred to as the dog-whistle has an understandable meaning for a general audience, rather than being incomprehensible.

A dysphemism is an expression with connotations that are offensive either about the subject matter or to the audience, or both. Dysphemisms contrast with neutral or euphemistic expressions.[1] Dysphemism is sometimes motivated by feelings such as fear, distaste, hatred, and contempt. Worded simply, a dysphemism is a derogatory or unpleasant term used instead of a pleasant or neutral one, such as "loony bin" for "mental hospital".

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Etymology

The word dysphemism comes from the Greek dys δύς "mis-" and pheme φήμη "speech, voice, reputation". Related terms include malphemism (from the Latin malus "bad"), and cacophemism (from the Greek kakos κακός "bad").

Usage

A dysphemism is a marked form which expresses a speaker's view or attitude towards the listener or group, as opposed to a form that is typical of the speaker's speech. Thus marked forms are relative to the speaker and social context. Were a speaker to use exclusively intimate terms to address a person (e.g., the person's first name), that would be the speaker's norm. To show social distance or to express anger one would use a marked (atypical) form, for example a more formal form of address, such as adding a title or using the listener's last name.[1]

Types

Synecdoche

One kind of dysphemism is synecdochic, where a part is used to represent the whole,[1] such as "What an asshole."

Dysphemistic epithets

Animal names are frequently used as dysphemistic epithets. By using one, the speaker offends the listener by targeting his or her humanity. Examples include "pig", "chicken", "sheep", "snake", and "rat".[2]

Name dysphemism

When a person uses another's name rather than an appropriate kinship term or title of address.[clarification needed] The speaker uses a more casual or lower style than is appropriate given the social context.

"Peter, what are you doing?" (rather than "Dad"/"Father")

"How are you doing, Bill?" (rather than "Uncle Bill")

(Many languages, to a greater extent than in English, use different forms to indicate respect, and thus provide more scope for such dysphemism and require care by non-native speakers to avoid causing offence by unintentional dysphemism.)

This use of language may not constitute dysphemism if the choice of words used by the speaker is welcomed by the listener, such as a father who prefers being called by his given name as opposed to "Dad"/"Father". In that case it would appeal to the listener's positive face rather than damage it, and would thus not be a dysphemism.

Anger or dissatisfaction with the listener (or group of people) may compel a speaker to use a name dysphemism or term of address dysphemism.[1]

Cross-cultural dysphemism

Various slang terms that are dysphemistic in one culture may not be if they hold a different meaning in another culture. For instance, the word "fag" when used in American English is typically a slur against gay men. However, in British English, the word "fag" is usually an inoffensive term used to refer to a cigarette, or, previously, a junior boy who serves a senior boy in a British public school.[3] Likewise, the word "fanny" when used in American English is a euphemism for one's buttocks, so benign that children use it. However, in British English, the word "fanny" is slang for vulva, and is considered to be vulgar.[4]

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According to William Safire, the term "dog whistle" in reference to politics may have been derived from its use in the field of opinion polling. Safire quotes Richard Morin, director of polling for The Washington Post, as writing in 1988,

subtle changes in question-wording sometimes produce remarkably different results… researchers call this the 'Dog Whistle Effect': Respondents hear something in the question that researchers do not[1]

and speculates that campaign workers adapted the phrase from political pollsters.[1]

In her 2006 book, Voting for Jesus: Christianity and Politics in Australia, academic Amanda Lohrey writes that the goal of the dog-whistle is to appeal to the greatest possible number of electors while alienating the smallest possible number. She uses as an example Australian politicians using broadly appealing words such as "family" and "values", which have extra resonance for Christians, while avoiding overt Christian moralizing that might be a turn-off for non-Christian voters.[2]

Australian political theorist Robert E. Goodin argues that the problem with dog-whistling is that it undermines democracy, because if voters have different understandings of what they were supporting during a campaign, the fact that they were seeming to support the same thing is "democratically meaningless" and does not give the dog-whistler a policy mandate.[3]

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The process of pejoration leads to words that were once considered euphemisms to now be considered dysphemisms. Words like "negro" and "colored" were once considered euphemisms,[8] but have since been replaced by terms like "black" and "African-American". Sometimes slight modifications of dysphemisms can make them acceptable: while "colored people" is considered dysphemistic, "people of color" does not carry the same connotations. The words "idiot" and "moron" were once polite terms to refer to people with mental disabilities,[9] but they are now rarely used without dysphemism. Likewise, the word "retarded" was introduced as a new polite form once the previous terms were outdated. Since then "retard" has been used dysphemistically, suggesting that this term might now be outdated as well. Often a word with both taboo and non-taboo meanings becomes restricted to the taboo definition alone. The term "euphemism treadmill",[10] coined by Steven Pinker, describes this process, in which terms with an emotionally charged referent that were once euphemisms become dysphemistic by association with the referent.

Reclamation of dysphemisms

"Nigger" would typically be dysphemistic; however, if used between African-Americans it may be seen as neutral (although extremely casual) by the listener, depending on his/her social distance from the speaker and perceived status relative to the other party;[1] see Nigga.

Reclamations of taboo terms have been both successful and unsuccessful. The term "chicano" was a derogatory term and has been successfully reclaimed. Some terms like "Yankee" (for an American) or "punk" for a late 1970s rocker, began as derogatory but were not considered such and adopted proudly by the named group. Movements to reclaim words for homosexuals such as "queer", "fag" and "dyke" are also noteworthy.[2]

Of note are historic examples of dysphemism reclamation; for instance, the term Impressionism originated as a critical remark that "Monet's Impression, Sunrise was not art, it was an impression", but was adopted to be the formal name of the style, and was accepted by the artists themselves.

Taboo terms are used as insults, epithets, and expletives because they damage the listener's face, which might destroy social harmony — especially if the speaker and listener are socially distant from one another. For this reason, terms of insult are socially taboo and dysphemistic. Breaking a social taboo can act as an emotional release, with the illocutionary act of expressing a feeling or attitude.[1]

Bad or taboo words for many things far outnumber the "good" words. Hugh Rawson notices in his book Wicked Words that when looking at Roget's International Thesaurus, there are "…89 synonyms for drunk, compared to 16 for sober, and 206 for bad person compared to 82 for good person. The synonyms for unchastity in the Thesaurus fill 140 lines, occupying exactly four times as much space as those for chastity. For unchaste woman, 34 synonyms are listed, for unchaste man, 24. No synonyms at all are given for chaste woman and chaste man."[2]

Bodily effluvia, or bodily excretions, are perennial targets for dysphemy. Many communities historically believed that bodily effluvia such as feces (faeces), spittle, blood, nail-parings, and hair-clippings were cursed. Such revulsion is apparently learned: children and animals are not put off by bodily effluvia (unless they have a foul smell). In a study done at Monash and La Trobe Universities in Melbourne, Australia, subjects rated bodily effluvia according to how revolting they found them. Feces, vomit, semen and menstrual blood were rated as most revolting while nail parings, breath, blood from a wound, hair clippings, and breast milk were rated as least revolting.[1] This continuum of the level of revulsion is apparent in certain dysphemism such as shitter for "toilet", to come off for "to ejaculate", and puke hole for "tavern" or "toilet".[11]

The "Dead Parrot Sketch", alternatively and originally known as the "Pet Shop Sketch" or "Parrot Sketch", is a sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus. It was written by John Cleese and Graham Chapman and initially performed in the show's first series, in the eighth episode ("Full Frontal Nudity", which first aired 7 December 1969).[1]

The sketch portrays a conflict between disgruntled customer Mr Praline (played by Cleese) and a shopkeeper (Michael Palin), who argue whether or not a recently purchased "Norwegian Blue" parrot is dead. It pokes fun at the many euphemisms for death used in British culture.

The "Dead Parrot" sketch was inspired by a "Car Salesman" sketch that Palin and Chapman had done in How to Irritate People. In it, Palin played a car salesman who repeatedly refused to admit that there was anything wrong with his customer's (Chapman) car, even as it fell apart in front of him. That sketch was based on an actual incident between Palin and a car salesman.[2] In Monty Python Live at Aspen, Palin said that this salesman "had an excuse for everything". John Cleese said on the same show that he and Chapman "believed that there was something very funny there, if we could find the right context for it". In early drafts of what would become the Dead Parrot Sketch, the frustrated customer was trying to return a faulty toaster to a shop. Chapman realised that it needed to be "madder", and came up with the parrot idea.[3]

Over the years, Cleese and Palin have done many versions of the "Dead Parrot" sketch for various television shows, record albums, and live performances. "Dead Parrot" was voted the top alternative comedy sketch in a Radio Times poll.[4]

The phrase "states' rights", literally referring to powers of individual state governments in the United States, was described in 2007 by David Greenberg in Slate as "code words" for institutionalized segregation and racism.[23] States rights was the banner under which groups like the Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties argued in 1955 against school desegregation.[24] In 1981, former Republican Party strategist Lee Atwater, when giving an anonymous interview discussing Nixon's Southern Strategy, said:[25][26]

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968, you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

— Lee Atwater, Republican Party strategist in an anonymous interview in 1981

Atwater was contrasting this with Ronald Reagan's campaign, which he felt "was devoid of any kind of racism, any kind of reference." However, others like U.S. law professor and author of the 2014 book Dog Whistle Politics Ian Haney-López described Reagan as "blowing a dog whistle" when the candidate told stories about "Cadillac-driving 'welfare queens' and 'strapping young bucks' buying T-bone steaks with food stamps" while he was campaigning for the presidency.[27][28][29] He argues that such rhetoric pushes middle-class white Americans to vote against their economic self-interest in order to punish "undeserving minorities" who, they believe, are receiving too much public assistance at their expense. According to López, conservative middle-class whites, convinced by powerful economic interests that minorities are the enemy, supported politicians who promised to curb illegal immigration and crack down on crime but inadvertently also voted for policies that favor the extremely rich, such as slashing taxes for top income brackets, giving corporations more regulatory control over industry and financial markets, union busting, cutting pensions for future public employees, reducing funding for public schools, and retrenching the social welfare state. He argues that these same voters cannot link rising inequality which has impacted their lives to the policy agendas they support, which resulted in a massive transfer of wealth to the top 1% of the population since the 1980s.[30]