In logic, equivocation ('calling two different things by the same name') is an informal fallacy resulting from the use of a particular word/expression in multiple senses throughout an argument leading to a false conclusion.[1][2]

It is a type of ambiguity that stems from a phrase having two distinct meanings, not from the grammar or structure of the sentence.[1]

Below is an example of equivocation in a syllogism (a logical chain of reasoning).

Since only man [human] is rational,

and no woman is a man [male],

therefore, no woman is rational.[1]

The first instance of "man" implies the entire human species, while the second implies just those who are male.

False choice

The presentation of a false choice often reflects a deliberate attempt to eliminate several options that may occupy the middle ground on an issue. A common argument against noise pollution laws involves a false choice. It might be argued that in New York City noise should not be regulated, because if it were, a number of businesses would be required to close[citation needed]. This argument assumes that, for example, a bar must be shut down to prevent disturbing levels of noise emanating from it after midnight. This ignores the fact that a law could require the bar to lower its noise levels, or install soundproofing structural elements to keep the noise from excessively transmitting onto others' properties.[7]

Black-and-white thinking

See also: Splitting (psychology) and Binary opposition

In psychology, a phenomenon related to the false dilemma is black-and-white thinking. There are people who routinely engage in black-and-white thinking, an example of which is someone who categorizes other people as all good or all bad.[8]

The Euthyphro dilemma is found in Plato's dialogue Euthyphro, in which Socrates asks Euthyphro, "Is the pious (τὸ ὅσιον) loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?" (10a)

Although it was originally applied to the ancient Greek pantheon, the dilemma has implications for modern monotheistic religions. Gottfried Leibniz asked whether the good and just "is good and just because God wills it or whether God wills it because it is good and just".[1] Ever since Plato's original discussion, this question has presented a problem for some theists, though others have thought it a false dilemma, and it continues to be an object of theological and philosophical discussion today.

>>8508946

>The Euthyphro dilemma

God commands it because it is right

Supporters

The first horn of the dilemma (i.e. that which is right is commanded by God because it is right) goes by a variety of names, including intellectualism, rationalism, realism, naturalism, and objectivism. Roughly, it is the view that there are independent moral standards: some actions are right or wrong in themselves, independent of God's commands. This is the view accepted by Socrates and Euthyphro in Plato's dialogue. The Mu'tazilah school of Islamic theology also defended the view (with, for example, Nazzam maintaining that God is powerless to engage in injustice or lying),[4] as did the Islamic philosopher Averroes.[5] Thomas Aquinas never explicitly addresses the Euthyphro dilemma, but Aquinas scholars often put him on this side of the issue.[6][7] Aquinas draws a distinction between what is good or evil in itself and what is good or evil because of God's commands,[8] with unchangeable moral standards forming the bulk of natural law.[9] Thus he contends that not even God can change the Ten Commandments (adding, however, that God can change what individuals deserve in particular cases, in what might look like special dispensations to murder or steal).[10] Among later Scholastics, Gabriel Vásquez is particularly clear-cut about obligations existing prior to anyone's will, even God's.[11][12] Modern natural law theory saw Grotius and Leibniz also putting morality prior to God's will, comparing moral truths to unchangeable mathematical truths, and engaging voluntarists like Pufendorf in philosophical controversy.[13] Cambridge Platonists like Benjamin Whichcote and Ralph Cudworth mounted seminal attacks on voluntarist theories, paving the way for the later rationalist metaethics of Samuel Clarke and Richard Price;[14][15][16] what emerged was a view on which eternal moral standards, though dependent on God in some way, exist independently of God's will and prior to God's commands. Contemporary philosophers of religion who embrace this horn of the Euthyphro dilemma include Richard Swinburne[17][18] and T. J. Mawson[19] (though see below for complications).

>>8508981

>The Euthyphro dilemma

Criticisms

Sovereignty: If there are moral standards independent of God's will, then "[t]here is something over which God is not sovereign. God is bound by the laws of morality instead of being their establisher. Moreover, God depends for his goodness on the extent to which he conforms to an independent moral standard. Thus, God is not absolutely independent."[20] 18th-century philosopher Richard Price, who takes the first horn and thus sees morality as "necessary and immutable", sets out the objection as follows: "It may seem that this is setting up something distinct from God, which is independent of him, and equally eternal and necessary."[21]

Omnipotence: These moral standards would limit God's power: not even God could oppose them by commanding what is evil and thereby making it good. This point was influential in Islamic theology: "In relation to God, objective values appeared as a limiting factor to His power to do as He wills… Ash'ari got rid of the whole embarrassing problem by denying the existence of objective values which might act as a standard for God's action."[22] Similar concerns drove the medieval voluntarists Duns Scotus and William of Ockham.[23] As contemporary philosopher Richard Swinburne puts the point, this horn "seems to place a restriction on God's power if he cannot make any action which he chooses obligatory… [and also] it seems to limit what God can command us to do. God, if he is to be God, cannot command us to do what, independently of his will, is wrong."[24]

Freedom of the will: Moreover, these moral standards would limit God's freedom of will: God could not command anything opposed to them, and perhaps would have no choice but to command in accordance with them.[25] As Mark Murphy puts the point, "if moral requirements existed prior to God's willing them, requirements that an impeccable God could not violate, God's liberty would be compromised."[26]

Morality without God: If there are moral standards independent of God, then morality would retain its authority even if God did not exist. This conclusion was explicitly (and notoriously) drawn by early modern political theorist Hugo Grotius: "What we have been saying [about the natural law] would have a degree of validity even if we should concede that which cannot be conceded without the utmost wickedness, that there is no God, or that the affairs of men are of no concern to him"[27] On such a view, God is no longer a "law-giver" but at most a "law-transmitter" who plays no vital role in the foundations of morality.[28] Nontheists have capitalized on this point, largely as a way of disarming moral arguments for God's existence: if morality does not depend on God in the first place, such arguments stumble at the starting gate.[29]

Responses to criticisms

Contemporary philosophers Joshua Hoffman and Gary S. Rosenkrantz take the first horn of the dilemma, branding divine command theory a "subjective theory of value" that makes morality arbitrary.[30] They accept a theory of morality on which, "right and wrong, good and bad, are in a sense independent of what anyone believes, wants, or prefers."[31] They do not address the aforementioned problems with the first horn, but do consider a related problem concerning God's omnipotence: namely, that it might be handicapped by his inability to bring about what is independently evil. To this they reply that God is omnipotent, even though there are states of affairs he cannot bring about: omnipotence is a matter of "maximal power", not an ability to bring about all possible states of affairs. And supposing that it is impossible for God not to exist, then since there cannot be more than one omnipotent being, it is therefore impossible for any being to have more power than God (e.g., a being who is omnipotent but not omnibenevolent).

>>8509003

>The Euthyphro dilemma

Thus God's omnipotence remains intact.[32]

Richard Swinburne and T. J. Mawson have a slightly more complicated view. They both take the first horn of the dilemma when it comes to necessary moral truths. But divine commands are not totally irrelevant, for God and his will can still affect contingent moral truths.[33][34][18][19] On the one hand, the most fundamental moral truths hold true regardless of whether God exists or what God has commanded: "Genocide and torturing children are wrong and would remain so whatever commands any person issued."[24] This is because, according to Swinburne, such truths are true as a matter of logical necessity: like the laws of logic, one cannot deny them without contradiction.[35] This parallel offers a solution to the aforementioned problems of God's sovereignty, omnipotence, and freedom: namely, that these necessary truths of morality pose no more of a threat than the laws of logic.[36][37][38] On the other hand, there is still an important role for God's will. First, there are some divine commands that can directly create moral obligations: e.g., the command to worship on Sundays instead of on Tuesdays.[39] Notably, not even these commands, for which Swinburne and Mawson take the second horn of the dilemma, have ultimate, underived authority. Rather, they create obligations only because of God's role as creator and sustainer and indeed owner of the universe, together with the necessary moral truth that we owe some limited consideration to benefactors and owners.[40][41] Second, God can make an indirect moral difference by deciding what sort of universe to create. For example, whether a public policy is morally good might indirectly depend on God's creative acts: the policy's goodness or badness might depend on its effects, and those effects would in turn depend on the sort of universe God has decided to create.[42][43]

>>8509018

>The Euthyphro dilemma

>>8509003

>The Euthyphro dilemma

>>8508981

>The Euthyphro dilemma

>>8508946

>The Euthyphro dilemma

Criticisms

This horn of the dilemma also faces several problems:

No reasons for morality: If there is no moral standard other than God's will, then God's commands are arbitrary (i.e., based on pure whimsy or caprice). This would mean that morality is ultimately not based on reasons: "if theological voluntarism is true, then God's commands/intentions must be arbitrary; [but] it cannot be that morality could wholly depend on something arbitrary… [for] when we say that some moral state of affairs obtains, we take it that there is a reason for that moral state of affairs obtaining rather than another."[63] And as Michael J. Murray and Michael Rea put it, this would also "cas[t] doubt on the notion that morality is genuinely objective."[64] An additional problem is that it is difficult to explain how true moral actions can exist if one acts only out of fear of God or in an attempt to be rewarded by him.[65]

No reasons for God: This arbitrariness would also jeopardize God's status as a wise and rational being, one who always acts on good reasons. As Leibniz writes: "Where will be his justice and his wisdom if he has only a certain despotic power, if arbitrary will takes the place of reasonableness, and if in accord with the definition of tyrants, justice consists in that which is pleasing to the most powerful? Besides it seems that every act of willing supposes some reason for the willing and this reason, of course, must precede the act."[66]

Anything goes:[67] This arbitrariness would also mean that anything could become good, and anything could become bad, merely upon God's command. Thus if God commanded us "to gratuitously inflict pain on each other"[68] or to engage in "cruelty for its own sake"[69] or to hold an "annual sacrifice of randomly selected ten-year-olds in a particularly gruesome ritual that involves excruciating and prolonged suffering for its victims",[70] then we would be morally obligated to do so. As 17th-century philosopher Ralph Cudworth put it: "nothing can be imagined so grossly wicked, or so foully unjust or dishonest, but if it were supposed to be commanded by this omnipotent Deity, must needs upon that hypothesis forthwith become holy, just, and righteous."[71]

Moral contingency: If morality depends on the perfectly free will of God, morality would lose its necessity: "If nothing prevents God from loving things that are different from what God actually loves, then goodness can change from world to world or time to time. This is obviously objectionable to those who believe that claims about morality are, if true, necessarily true."[67] In other words, no action is necessarily moral: any right action could have easily been wrong, if God had so decided, and an action which is right today could easily become wrong tomorrow, if God so decides. Indeed, some have argued that divine command theory is incompatible with ordinary conceptions of moral supervenience.[72]

Why do God's commands obligate?: Mere commands do not create obligations unless the commander has some commanding authority. But this commanding authority cannot itself be based on those very commands (i.e., a command to obey commands), otherwise a vicious circle results. So, in order for God's commands to obligate us, he must derive commanding authority from some source other than his own will. As Cudworth put it: "For it was never heard of, that any one founded all his authority of commanding others, and others [sic] obligation or duty to obey his commands, in a law of his own making, that men should be required, obliged, or bound to obey him.

>>8509052

Wherefore since the thing willed in all laws is not that men should be bound or obliged to obey; this thing cannot be the product of the meer [sic] will of the commander, but it must proceed from something else; namely, the right or authority of the commander."[73] To avoid the circle, one might say our obligation comes from gratitude to God for creating us. But this presupposes some sort of independent moral standard obligating us to be grateful to our benefactors. As 18th-century philosopher Francis Hutcheson writes: "Is the Reason exciting to concur with the Deity this, 'The Deity is our Benefactor?' Then what Reason excites to concur with Benefactors?"[74] Or finally, one might resort to Hobbes's view: "The right of nature whereby God reigneth over men, and punisheth those that break his laws, is to be derived, not from his creating them (as if he required obedience, as of gratitude for his benefits), but from his irresistible power."[75] In other words, might makes right.

God's goodness: If all goodness is a matter of God's will, then what shall become of God's goodness? Thus William P. Alston writes, "since the standards of moral goodness are set by divine commands, to say that God is morally good is just to say that he obeys his own commands… that God practises what he preaches, whatever that might be;"[68] Hutcheson deems such a view "an insignificant tautology, amounting to no more than this, 'That God wills what he wills.'"[76] Alternatively, as Leibniz puts it, divine command theorists "deprive God of the designation good: for what cause could one have to praise him for what he does, if in doing something quite different he would have done equally well?"[77] A related point is raised by C. S. Lewis: "if good is to be defined as what God commands, then the goodness of God Himself is emptied of meaning and the commands of an omnipotent fiend would have the same claim on us as those of the 'righteous Lord.'"[78] Or again Leibniz: "this opinion would hardly distinguish God from the devil."[79] That is, since divine command theory trivializes God's goodness, it is incapable of explaining the difference between God and an all-powerful demon.

The is-ought problem and the naturalistic fallacy: According to David Hume, it is hard to see how moral propositions featuring the relation ought could ever be deduced from ordinary is propositions, such as "the being of a God."[80] Divine command theory is thus guilty of deducing moral oughts from ordinary ises about God's commands.[81] In a similar vein, G. E. Moore argued (with his open question argument) that the notion good is indefinable, and any attempts to analyze it in naturalistic or metaphysical terms are guilty of the so-called "naturalistic fallacy."[82] This would block any theory which analyzes morality in terms of God's will: and indeed, in a later discussion of divine command theory, Moore concluded that "when we assert any action to be right or wrong, we are not merely making an assertion about the attitude of mind towards it of any being or set of beings whatever."[83]

No morality without God: If all morality is a matter of God's will, then if God does not exist, there is no morality. This is the thought captured in the slogan (often attributed to Dostoevsky) "If God does not exist, everything is permitted." Divine command theorists disagree over whether this is a problem for their view or a virtue of their view. Many argue that morality does indeed require God's existence, and that this is in fact a problem for atheism. But divine command theorist Robert Merrihew Adams contends that this idea ("that no actions would be ethically wrong if there were not a loving God") is one that "will seem (at least initially) implausible to many", and that his theory must "dispel [an] air of paradox."[84]

>>8509082

Restricted divine command theory

One common response to the Euthyphro dilemma centers on a distinction between value and obligation. Obligation, which concerns rightness and wrongness (or what is required, forbidden, or permissible), is given a voluntarist treatment. But value, which concerns goodness and badness, is treated as independent of divine commands. The result is a restricted divine command theory that applies only to a specific region of morality: the deontic region of obligation. This response is found in Francisco Suárez's discussion of natural law and voluntarism in De legibus[85] and has been prominent in contemporary philosophy of religion, appearing in the work of Robert M. Adams,[86] Philip L. Quinn,[87] and William P. Alston.[88]

A significant attraction of such a view is that, since it allows for a non-voluntarist treatment of goodness and badness, and therefore of God's own moral attributes, some of the aforementioned problems with voluntarism can perhaps be answered. God's commands are not arbitrary: there are reasons which guide his commands based ultimately on this goodness and badness.[89] God could not issue horrible commands: God's own essential goodness[81][90][91] or loving character[92] would keep him from issuing any unsuitable commands. Our obligation to obey God's commands does not result in circular reasoning; it might instead be based on a gratitude whose appropriateness is itself independent of divine commands.[93] These proposed solutions are controversial,[94] and some steer the view back into problems associated with the first horn.[95]

One problem remains for such views: if God's own essential goodness does not depend on divine commands, then on what does it depend? Something other than God? Here the restricted divine command theory is commonly combined with a view reminiscent of Plato: God is identical to the ultimate standard for goodness.[96] Alston offers the analogy of the standard meter bar in France. Something is a meter long inasmuch as it is the same length as the standard meter bar, and likewise, something is good inasmuch as it approximates God. If one asks why God is identified as the ultimate standard for goodness, Alston replies that this is "the end of the line," with no further explanation available, but adds that this is no more arbitrary than a view that invokes a fundamental moral standard.[97] On this view, then, even though goodness is independent of God's will, it still depends on God, and thus God's sovereignty remains intact.

This solution has been criticized by Wes Morriston. If we identify the ultimate standard for goodness with God's nature, then it seems we are identifying it with certain properties of God (e.g., being loving, being just). If so, then the dilemma resurfaces: is God good because he has those properties, or are those properties good because God has them?[98] Nevertheless, Morriston concludes that the appeal to God's essential goodness is the divine-command theorist's best bet. To produce a satisfying result, however, it would have to give an account of God's goodness that does not trivialize it and does not make God subject to an independent standard of goodness.[99]

Moral philosopher Peter Singer, disputing the perspective that "God is good" and could never advocate something like torture, states that those who propose this are "caught in a trap of their own making, for what can they possibly mean by the assertion that God is good? That God is approved of by God?"[100]

False dilemma

Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas all wrote about the issues raised by the Euthyphro dilemma, although, like William James[101] and Wittgenstein[62] later, they did not mention it by name. As philosopher and Anselm scholar Katherin A. Rogers observes, many contemporary philosophers of religion suppose that there are true propositions which exist as platonic abstracta independently of God.[102] Among these are propositions constituting a moral order, to which God must conform in order to be good.[103] Classical Judaeo-Christian theism, however, rejects such a view as inconsistent with God's omnipotence, which requires that God and what he has made is all that there is.[102] "The classical tradition," Rogers notes, "also steers clear of the other horn of the Euthyphro dilemma, divine command theory."[104] From a classical theistic perspective, therefore, the Euthyphro dilemma is false. As Rogers puts it, "Anselm, like Augustine before him and Aquinas later, rejects both horns of the Euthyphro dilemma. God neither conforms to nor invents the moral order. Rather His very nature is the standard for value."[102]

Like Aristotle, Aquinas rejected Platonism.[113] In his view, to speak of abstractions not only as existent, but as more perfect exemplars than fully designated particulars, is to put a premium on generality and vagueness.[114] On this analysis, the abstract "good" in the first horn of the Euthyphro dilemma is an unnecessary obfuscation. Aquinas frequently quoted with approval Aristotle's definition, "Good is what all desire."[115][116] As he clarified, "When we say that good is what all desire, it is not to be understood that every kind of good thing is desired by all, but that whatever is desired has the nature of good."[117] In other words, even those who desire evil desire it "only under the aspect of good," i.e., of what is desirable.[118] The difference between desiring good and desiring evil is that in the former, will and reason are in harmony, whereas in the latter, they are in discord.[119]

Aquinas's discussion of sin provides a good point of entry to his philosophical explanation of why the nature of God is the standard for value. "Every sin," he writes, "consists in the longing for a passing [i.e., ultimately unreal or false] good."[120] Thus, "in a certain sense it is true what Socrates says, namely that no one sins with full knowledge."[121] "No sin in the will happens without an ignorance of the understanding."[122] God, however, has full knowledge (omniscience) and therefore by definition (that of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as well as Aquinas) can never will anything other than what is good. It has been claimed – for instance, by Nicolai Hartmann, who wrote: "There is no freedom for the good that would not be at the same time freedom for evil"[123] – that this would limit God's freedom, and therefore his omnipotence. Josef Pieper, however, replies that such arguments rest upon an impermissibly anthropomorphic conception of God.[124] In the case of humans, as Aquinas says, to be able to sin is indeed a consequence,[125] or even a sign, of freedom (quodam libertatis signum).[126] Humans, in other words, are not puppets manipulated by God so that they always do what is right. However, "it does not belong to the essence of the free will to be able to decide for evil."[127] "To will evil is neither freedom nor a part of freedom."[126] It is precisely humans' creatureliness – that is, their not being God and therefore omniscient – that makes them capable of sinning.[128] Consequently, writes Pieper, "the inability to sin should be looked on as the very signature of a higher freedom – contrary to the usual way of conceiving the issue."[124] Pieper concludes: "Only the will [i.e., God's] can be the right standard of its own willing and must will what is right necessarily, from within itself, and always. A deviation from the norm would not even be thinkable. And obviously only the absolute divine will is the right standard of its own act"[129][130] – and consequently of all human acts. Thus the second horn of the Euthyphro dilemma, divine command theory, is also disposed of.

Thomist philosopher Edward Feser writes, "Divine simplicity [entails] that God’s will just is God’s goodness which just is His immutable and necessary existence. That means that what is objectively good and what God wills for us as morally obligatory are really the same thing considered under different descriptions, and that neither could have been other than they are. There can be no question then, either of God’s having arbitrarily commanded something different for us (torturing babies for fun, or whatever) or of there being a standard of goodness apart from Him. Again, the Euthyphro dilemma is a false one; the third option that it fails to consider is that what is morally obligatory is what God commands in accordance with a non-arbitrary and unchanging standard of goodness that is not independent of Him… He is not under the moral law precisely because He is the moral law."[131]

William James, in his essay "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life", dismisses the first horn of the Euthyphro dilemma and stays clear of the second. He writes: "Our ordinary attitude of regarding ourselves as subject to an overarching system of moral relations, true 'in themselves,' is … either an out-and-out superstition, or else it must be treated as a merely provisional abstraction from that real Thinker … to whom the existence of the universe is due."[132] Moral obligations are created by "personal demands," whether these demands[133] come from the weakest creatures, from the most insignificant persons, or from God. It follows that "ethics have as genuine a foothold in a universe where the highest consciousness is human, as in a universe where there is a God as well." However, whether "the purely human system" works "as well as the other is a different question."[132]

For James, the deepest practical difference in the moral life is between what he calls "the easy-going and the strenuous mood."[134] In a purely human moral system, it is hard to rise above the easy-going mood, since the thinker's "various ideals, known to him to be mere preferences of his own, are too nearly of the same denominational value;[135] he can play fast and loose with them at will. This too is why, in a merely human world without a God, the appeal to our moral energy falls short of its maximum stimulating power." Our attitude is "entirely different" in a world where there are none but "finite demanders" from that in a world where there is also "an infinite demander." This is because "the stable and systematic moral universe for which the ethical philosopher asks is fully possible only in a world where there is a divine thinker with all-enveloping demands", for in that case, "actualized in his thought already must be that ethical philosophy which we seek as the pattern which our own must evermore approach." Even though "exactly what the thought of this infinite thinker may be is hidden from us", our postulation of him serves "to let loose in us the strenuous mood"[134] and confront us with an existential[136] "challenge" in which "our total character and personal genius … are on trial; and if we invoke any so-called philosophy, our choice and use of that also are but revelations of our personal aptitude or incapacity for moral life. From this unsparing practical ordeal no professor's lectures and no array of books can save us."[134] In the words of Richard M. Gale, "God inspires us to lead the morally strenuous life in virtue of our conceiving of him as unsurpassably good. This supplies James with an adequate answer to the underlying question of the Euthyphro."[13

The term itself came from an ancient Greek word that means "a turning back on one" and likened to the image of a snake devouring its own tail.[3] Socrates' peritrope described Protagoras' view as a theory that no longer requires criticism because it already devours itself.[3] Sextus Empiricus is thought to have given the name in a comment on Protagoras' view in Against the Logicians[4] written around 200 CE.[5] The name has been in continuous use ever since, as Socrates' argument provides the foundation for classical propositional logic and hence much of traditional western philosophy (or analytic philosophy). For instance, Sextus noted that Protagoras' famous doctrine that man is the measure of all things is self-refuting because "one of the things that appears (is judged) to be the case is that not every appearance is true".[6] This assumption was later refuted due to a mistake on the part of Sextus' interpretation that the Protagorean measure doctrine boiled down to a subjectivist thesis that whatever appearance whatsoever is true.[7]

Well-known attestations of peritrope also include Avicenna and Thomas Aquinas, and in modern times Roger Scruton, Myles Burnyeat, and many others. The word is occasionally used to describe argument forms similar in nature to that of Socrates' overturning of Protagoras. Modern philosophers overturning Protagoras' relative truth include Edmund Husserl and John Anderson.[8]

For many centuries the peritrope was used primarily as a tool for refuting versions of skepticism[9] that propose that truth is unknowable, which can be challenged by responding with the peritrope — the question, Well, then, how do you know that to be true? This kind of skepticism and similar views are considered to be "self-refuting." In other words, a philosopher has retained what he has disavowed in and by the disavowal itself. In general, versions of the peritrope can be used to challenge many kinds of assertion that universality is impossible.

In What Plato Said, Paul Shorey notes: "The first argument advanced by Socrates is the so-called peritrope, to use the later technical term, that the opinion of Protagoras destroys itself, for, if truth is what each man troweth, and the majority of mankind in fact repudiates Protagoras' definition of truth, it is on Protagoras' own pragmatic showing more often false than true".

In Modern Philosophy: An Introduction and Survey (1996), Roger Scruton formulates the argument as such: "A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is 'merely relative,' is asking you not to believe him. So don't."

The Svatantrika–Prasaṅgika distinction is a doctrinal distinction made within Tibetan Buddhism between two stances regarding the use of logic and the meaning of conventional truth within the presentation of Madhyamaka.

Svātantrika is a category of Madhyamaka viewpoints attributed primarily to the 6th-century Indian scholar Bhāviveka. Bhāviveka criticised Buddhapalita’s abstinence from syllogistic reasoning in his commentary on Nagarjuna.[1] Following the example of the influential logician Dignāga, Bhāviveka used autonomous syllogistic reasoning (svātantra) syllogisms in the explanation of Madhyamaka. To have a common ground with essentialist opponents, and make it possible to use syllogistic reasoning in discussion with those essentialists, Bhāviveka argued that things can be said to exist conventionally 'according to characteristics'. This makes it possible to take the mere object as the point of departure for the discussion on inherent existence. From there, it is possible to explain how these things are ultimately empty of inherent existence.[2]

Prasaṅgika views are based on Candrakīrti's critique of Bhāviveka, arguing for a sole reliance on prasaṅga, "logic consequence," a method of reductio ad absurdum which is used by all Madhyamikas, using syllogisms to point out the absurd and impossible logical consequences of holding essentialist views.[3][page needed] According to Candrakīrti, the mere object can only be discussed if both parties perceive it in the same way.[4][note 1] As a consequence (according to Candrakirti) svatantrika reasoning is impossible in a debate, since the opponents argue from two irreconcilable points of view, namely a mistaken essentialist perception, and a correct non-essentialist perception. This leaves no ground for a discussion starting from a similarly perceived object of discussion, and also makes impossible the use of syllogistic reasoning to convince the opponent.[note 2]

Candrakīrti's works had no influence on Indian and early Tibetan Madhayamaka, but started to rise to prominence in Tibet in the 12th century. Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), the founder of the Gelugpa school and the most outspoken proponent of the distinction, followed Candrakīrti in his rejection of Bhavaviveka's arguments.[5] According to Tsongkhapa, the Svātantrikas do negate intrinsic nature ultimately, but "accept that things conventionally have intrinsic character or intrinsic nature."[6] Tsongkhapa, commenting on Candrakirti, says that he "refute[s] essential or intrinsic nature even conventionally."[7] For Tsongkhapa, as well as for the Karma Kagyu school, the differences with Bhavaviveka are of major importance.[8][page needed]

Established by Lama Tsongkhapa, Candrakīrti's view replaced the Yogācāra-Mādhyamika approach of Śāntarakṣita (725–788), who synthesized Madhyamaka, Yogacara and Buddhist logic in a powerful and influential synthesis called Yogācāra-Mādhyamika. Śāntarakṣita established Buddhism in Tibet, and his Yogācāra-Mādhyamika was the primary philosophic viewpoint until the 12th century, when the works of Candrakīrti were first translated into Tibetan.[3] In this synthesis, conventional truth or reality is explained and analysed in terms of the Yogacara system, while the ultimate truth is presented in terms of the Madhyamaka system.[9] While Śāntarakṣita's synthesis reflects the final development of Indian Madhyamaka and post-dates Candrakīrti, Tibetan doxographers ignored the nuances of Śāntarakṣita's synthesis, grouping his approach together with Bhāviveka's, due to their usage of syllogistic reasonings to explain and defend Madhyamaka.[3]

After the 17th century civil war in Tibet and the Mongol intervention which put the Gelugpa school in the center of power, Tsongkhapa's views dominated Tibetan Buddhism until the 20th century.[3] The Rimé movement revived alternate teachings, providing alternatives to Tsongkhapa's interpretation, and reintroducing Śāntarakṣita's nuances. For the Sakya and Nyingma schools, which participated in the Rimé movement, the Svatantrika–Prasaṅgika distinction is generally viewed to be of lesser importance.[10][11][8][page needed] For these schools, the key distinction between these viewpoints is whether one works with assertions about the ultimate nature of reality, or if one refrains completely from doing so. If one works with assertions, then that is a Svātantrika approach. Refraining from doing so is a Prāsangika approach.[web 1][better source needed]

Circumlocution (also called circumduction, circumvolution, periphrasis, kenning[1] or ambage)[2] is a phrase that circles around a specific idea with multiple words rather than directly evoking it with fewer and apter words. It is sometimes necessary in communication (for example, to avoid lexical gaps that would cause untranslatability), but it can also be undesirable (when an uncommon or easily misunderstood figure of speech is used).[3] Roundabout speech is the use of many words 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").[4] 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"). Euphemism, innuendo and equivocation are different forms of circumlocution.

Euphemistic language often uses circumlocution to avoid saying words that are taboo or considered offensive. For example, "Holy mother of Jesus!" is a circumlocution of "Mary!", but "heck", while still euphemistic, is not a circumlocution of "hell".

Euphemistic circumlocution is also used to avoid saying "unlucky words"—words which are taboo for reasons connected with superstition: for example, calling the devil "Old Nick",[note 1] calling Macbeth "the Scottish Play" or saying "baker's dozen" instead of thirteen.

Innuendo refers to something suggested but not explicitly stated.[5]

Equivocation is the use of ambiguous language to avoid telling the truth or forming commitments.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logorrhea_(psychology)

The word logorrhea is often used pejoratively to describe highly abstract prose that contains little concrete language. Since abstract writing is hard to visualize, it often seems confusing or excessive. Works in academic fields that involve many abstract ideas, such as philosophy, often fail to include extensive concrete examples of their ideas.

An essay intentionally filled with "logorrhea" that mixed physics concepts with sociological concepts in a nonsensical way was published by physics professor Alan Sokal in a journal (Social Text) as a scholarly publishing sting. The journal defended the article's publication since it fell under several publication criteria, but regretted it as it was a sting that contributed to the disparaging of science studies or cultural studies. The episode became known as the Sokal Affair.[8]

The term is sometimes also applied to unnecessarily wordy speech in general; this is more usually referred to as prolixity. Some people defend the use of additional words as idiomatic, a matter of artistic preference, or helpful in explaining complex ideas or messages.[citation needed]

Formal fallacies

Main article: Formal fallacy

A formal fallacy is an error in logic that can be seen in the argument's form.[4] All formal fallacies are specific types of non sequitur.

Appeal to probability – a statement that takes something for granted because it would probably be the case (or might be the case).[5][6]

Argument from fallacy (also known as the fallacy fallacy) – the assumption that if an argument for some conclusion is fallacious, then the conclusion is false.[7]

Base rate fallacy – making a probability judgment based on conditional probabilities, without taking into account the effect of prior probabilities.[8]

Conjunction fallacy – the assumption that an outcome simultaneously satisfying multiple conditions is more probable than an outcome satisfying a single one of them.[9]

Masked-man fallacy (illicit substitution of identicals) – the substitution of identical designators in a true statement can lead to a false one.[10]

Propositional fallacies

A propositional fallacy is an error in logic that concerns compound propositions. For a compound proposition to be true, the truth values of its constituent parts must satisfy the relevant logical connectives that occur in it (most commonly: [and], [or], [not], [only if], [if and only if]). The following fallacies involve inferences whose correctness is not guaranteed by the behavior of those logical connectives, and hence, which are not logically guaranteed to yield true conclusions.

Types of propositional fallacies:

Affirming a disjunct – concluding that one disjunct of a logical disjunction must be false because the other disjunct is true; A or B; A, therefore not B.[11]

Affirming the consequent – the antecedent in an indicative conditional is claimed to be true because the consequent is true; if A, then B; B, therefore A.[11]

Denying the antecedent – the consequent in an indicative conditional is claimed to be false because the antecedent is false; if A, then B; not A, therefore not B.[11]

Quantification fallacies

A quantification fallacy is an error in logic where the quantifiers of the premises are in contradiction to the quantifier of the conclusion.

Types of quantification fallacies:

Existential fallacy – an argument that has a universal premise and a particular conclusion.[12]

Formal syllogistic fallacies

Syllogistic fallacies – logical fallacies that occur in syllogisms.

Affirmative conclusion from a negative premise (illicit negative) – a categorical syllogism has a positive conclusion, but at least one negative premise.[12]

Fallacy of exclusive premises – a categorical syllogism that is invalid because both of its premises are negative.[12]

Fallacy of four terms (quaternio terminorum) – a categorical syllogism that has four terms.[13]

Illicit major – a categorical syllogism that is invalid because its major term is not distributed in the major premise but distributed in the conclusion.[12]

Illicit minor – a categorical syllogism that is invalid because its minor term is not distributed in the minor premise but distributed in the conclusion.[12]

Negative conclusion from affirmative premises (illicit affirmative) – a categorical syllogism has a negative conclusion but affirmative premises.[12]

Fallacy of the undistributed middle – the middle term in a categorical syllogism is not distributed.[14]

Modal fallacy – confusing possibility with necessity.

Modal scope fallacy – a degree of unwarranted necessity is placed in the conclusion.