>>8507184

In logic, reductio ad absurdum (Latin for '"reduction to absurdity"'), also known as argumentum ad absurdum (Latin for "argument to absurdity"), apagogical arguments, negation introduction or the appeal to extremes, is a form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absurdity or contradiction.[1][2] It can be used to disprove a statement by showing that it would inevitably lead to a ridiculous, absurd, or impractical conclusion,[3] or to prove a statement by showing that if it were false, then the result would be absurd or impossible.[4][5] Traced back to classical Greek philosophy in Aristotle's Prior Analytics[5] (Greek: ἡ εἰς τὸ ἀδύνατον ἀπόδειξις, lit. 'demonstration to the impossible', 62b), this technique has been used throughout history in both formal mathematical and philosophical reasoning, as well as in debate.[6]

The "absurd" conclusion of a reductio ad absurdum argument can take a range of forms, as these examples show:

The Earth cannot be flat; otherwise, we would find people falling off the edge.

There is no smallest positive rational number because, if there were, then it could be divided by two to get a smaller one.

The first example argues that denial of the premise would result in a ridiculous conclusion, against the evidence of our senses. The second example is a mathematical proof by contradiction (also known as an indirect proof[7]), which argues that the denial of the premise would result in a logical contradiction (there is a "smallest" number and yet there is a number smaller than it).[8]>YUGE SOY DUES FAGS

>>8507135 >Examples of chiasmus and its subtype antimetabole >>8507113 >antimetabole >>8507072 >Epanalepsis >>8507062 >Anadiplosis

>>8507034 >Anadiplosis >>8506990 >polysyllogism >>8506947 >The Epimenides paradox >>8506898 >circulus in probando >>8506874 >Begging or assuming the point at issue consists

>>8506852 >>8506840 >Self-refuting ideas or self-defeating ideas >>8506817 >jew noddle goals >>8506787 >rub your jew noodles on it

>>8506761 >begging the question is an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it.

>>8506740 >[petitio principii] >>8506701 >Complex question fallacy >Further information: Loaded question

>>8506669 > misleading discourse involves presupposing and implying something without stating it explicitly, by phrasing it as a question

>>8506647 >presupposition >>8506608 > getting those hobbits to mordor 2020 >>8506575 >Presupposition triggers >>8506557 >Projection of presuppositions

>>8506542 >presupposition (or PSP) is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse

In current usage, there are multiple and sometimes conflicting definitions for zeugma and syllepsis. This article categorizes these two figures of speech into four types, based on four definitions:

Type 1

Grammatical syllepsis (sometimes also called zeugma): where a single word is used in relation to two other parts of a sentence although the word grammatically or logically applies to only one.[2][4]

By definition, grammatical syllepsis will often be grammatically "incorrect" according to traditional grammatical rules. However, such solecisms are sometimes not errors but intentional constructions in which the rules of grammar are bent by necessity or for stylistic effect.

"He works his work, I mine" (Tennyson, "Ulysses").[4]

It is ungrammatical from a grammarian's viewpoint, because "works" does not grammatically agree with "I": the sentence "I works mine" would be ungrammatical. On the other hand, Tennyson's two sentences could be taken to deploy a different figure of speech, namely "ellipsis". The sentence would be taken to mean,

"He works his work, [and] I [work] mine."

Read in this way, the conjunction is not ungrammatical.

Sometimes the "error" is logical, rather than grammatical:

"They saw lots of thunder and lightning."[4]

Logically, they "saw" only the lightning.

Type 2

Zeugma (often also called syllepsis, or semantic syllepsis): a single word is used with two other parts of a sentence but must be understood differently in relation to each.[5][6][7][8] Example: "He took his hat and his leave." The type of figure is grammatically correct but creates its effect by seeming, at first hearing, to be incorrect by its exploiting multiple shades of meaning in a single word or phrase.

"Here Thou, great Anna! whom three Realms obey,

Dost sometimes Counsel take – and sometimes Tea." (Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock, Canto III)[9][10]

"Miss Bolo […] went straight home, in a flood of tears and a sedan-chair." (Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, Chapter 35)[11]

"She lowered her standards by raising her glass / Her courage, her eyes and his hopes…"When he asked 'What in heaven?' she made no reply, up her mind, and a dash for the door." (Flanders and Swann, "Have Some Madeira M'Dear")[4][12]

"They covered themselves with dust and glory." (Mark Twain)[4].

"He watches afternoon repeats and the food he eats." (Blur, 'Country House')

When the meaning of a verb varies for the nouns following it, there is a standard order for the nouns: the noun first takes the most prototypical or literal meaning of the verb and is followed by the noun or nouns taking the less prototypical or more figurative verb meanings.[13]

"The boy swallowed milk and kisses," as contrasted with "The boy swallowed kisses and milk".[13]

The opposite process, in which the first noun expresses a figurative meaning and the second a more literal meaning, tends to create a comic effect: “and she feeds me love and tenderness and macaroons.” (The Stampeders, “Sweet City Woman”)

Type 3

The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms offers a much broader definition for zeugma by defining it as any case of parallelism and ellipsis working together so that a single word governs two or more other parts of a sentence.[14]

Vicit pudorem libido timorem audacia rationem amentia. (Cicero, Pro Cluentio, VI.15)

"Lust conquered shame; audacity, fear; madness, reason."

The more usual way of phrasing this would be "Lust conquered shame, audacity conquered fear, and madness conquered reason." The sentence consists of three parallel clauses, called parallel because each has the same word order: subject, verb, object. The verb "conquered" is a common element in each clause. The zeugma is created by removing the second and third instances of "conquered". Removing words that still can be understood by the context of the remaining words is ellipsis.

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. (Francis Bacon[15]).

The more usual way of phrasing this would be "Histories make men wise, poets make them witty, the mathematics make them subtle, natural philosophy makes them deep, moral [philosophy] makes them grave, and logic and rhetoric make them able to contend."

Zeugmas are defined in this sense in Samuel Johnson's 18th-century A Dictionary of the English Language.[16]

A special case of semantic syllepsis occurs when a word or phrase is used both in its figurative and literal sense at the same time.[3] Then, it is not necessary for the governing phrase to relate to two other parts of the sentence. One example, from the song "What's My Name?", is: "Okay, there we go / Only thing we have on is the radio." Another example is in an advertisement for a transport company: "We go a long way for you." This type of syllepsis operates in a similar manner to a homonymic pun.

>>8507889 >antanaclasis >>8507872 >>8507872 cock >>8507835 >antanaclasis. >>8507794 >>8507777 >Reductio ad absurdum >>8507762 >Fallacies >>8507628 >reductio ad absurdum

>>8508219 >conflicting definitions for zeugma and syllepsis

>>8508260 >There are several other definitions of zeugma >>8508300 >Hypozeuxis >>8508330 >A loaded question or complex question

>>8508368 >A loaded question or complex question >>8508453 >The false dilemma fallacy

>>8508471 >Polyptoton >>8508509 >Polyptoton >>8508553 >Polyptoton >>8508591 >Polyptoton

>>8508612 >Epimenides paradox >>8508640 >Epimenides paradox

>>8509534 >Formal fallacies >>8509499 >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logorrhea_(psychology) >>8509458 >Euphemistic >>8509419 >Circumlocution

>>8509371 >The Svatantrika–Prasaṅgika distinction >>8509299 >peritrope

>>8509218 >Euthyphro dilemma >>8509155 >Euthyphro dilemma >>8509128 >Euthyphro dilemma >>8509082 >Euthyphro dilemma

>>8509052 >Euthyphro dilemma >>8509018 >Euthyphro dilemma >>8509003 >Euthyphro dilemma >>8508981 >Euthyphro dilemma

>>8508946 >Euthyphro dilemma >>8508909 >False choice >>8508891 >equivocation

Informal fallacies – arguments that are fallacious for reasons other than structural (formal) flaws and that usually require examination of the argument's content.[15]

Argument to moderation (false compromise, middle ground, fallacy of the mean, argumentum ad temperantiam) – assuming that the compromise between two positions is always correct.[16]

Continuum fallacy (fallacy of the beard, line-drawing fallacy, sorites fallacy, fallacy of the heap, bald man fallacy) – improperly rejecting a claim for being imprecise.[17]

Correlative-based fallacies

Suppressed correlative – a correlative is redefined so that one alternative is made impossible.[18]

Definist fallacy – involves the confusion between two notions by defining one in terms of the other.[19]

Divine fallacy (argument from incredulity) – arguing that, because something is so incredible or amazing, it must be the result of superior, divine, alien or paranormal agency.[20]

Double counting – counting events or occurrences more than once in probabilistic reasoning, which leads to the sum of the probabilities of all cases exceeding unity.

Equivocation – the misleading use of a term with more than one meaning (by glossing over which meaning is intended at a particular time).[21]

Ambiguous middle term – a common ambiguity in syllogisms in which the middle term is equivocated.[22]

Definitional retreat – changing the meaning of a word to deal with an objection raised against the original wording.[1]

Motte-and-bailey fallacy – the arguer conflates two positions with similar properties, one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial (the "bailey").[23] The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position.[24][25] This fallacy has been described as the inverse of the straw man, in "replacing a weak position with a strong position to better defend it" rather than "replacing a strong position with a weak position to better attack it".[26]

Fallacy of accent – a specific type of ambiguity that arises when the meaning of a sentence is changed by placing an unusual prosodic stress, or when, in a written passage, it is left unclear which word the emphasis was supposed to fall on.

Persuasive definition – a form of stipulative definition which purports to describe the "true" or "commonly accepted" meaning of a term, while in reality stipulating an uncommon or altered use.

(See also the if-by-whiskey fallacy, below)

Ecological fallacy – inferences about the nature of specific individuals are based solely upon aggregate statistics collected for the group to which those individuals belong.[27]

Etymological fallacy – reasoning that the original or historical meaning of a word or phrase is necessarily similar to its actual present-day usage.[28]

Fallacy of composition – assuming that something true of part of a whole must also be true of the whole.[29]

Fallacy of division – assuming that something true of a thing must also be true of all or some of its parts.[30]

False attribution – an advocate appeals to an irrelevant, unqualified, unidentified, biased or fabricated source in support of an argument.

Fallacy of quoting out of context (contextotomy, contextomy; quotation mining) – refers to the selective excerpting of words from their original context in a way that distorts the source's intended meaning.[31]

False authority (single authority) – using an expert of dubious credentials or using only one opinion to sell a product or idea. Related to the appeal to authority.

False dilemma (false dichotomy, fallacy of bifurcation, black-or-white fallacy) – two alternative statements are held to be the only possible options when in reality there are more.[32]

False equivalence – describing a situation of logical and apparent equivalence, when in fact there is none.

Feedback fallacy - in the context of performance appraisal, the belief in the accuracy of feedback, despite evidence that feedback is subject to large systematic errors due to the idiosyncratic rater effect.[33]

Historian's fallacy – the assumption that decision makers of the past viewed events from the same perspective and had the same information as those subsequently analyzing the decision.[34] (Not to be confused with presentism, which is a mode of historical analysis in which present-day ideas, such as moral standards, are projected into the past.)

Historical fallacy – a set of considerations is thought to hold good only because a completed process is read into the content of the process which conditions this completed result.[35]

Baconian fallacy - using pieces of historical evidence without the aid of specific methods, hypotheses, or theories in an attempt to make a general truth about the past. Commits historians "to the pursuit of an impossible object by an impracticable method".[36]

Homunculus fallacy – a "middle-man" is used for explanation; this sometimes leads to regressive middle-men. Explains without actually explaining the real nature of a function or a process. Instead, it explains the concept in terms of the concept itself, without first defining or explaining the original concept. Explaining thought as something produced by a little thinker, a sort of homunculus inside the head, merely explains it as another kind of thinking (as different but the same).[37]

Inflation of conflict – arguing that if experts of a field of knowledge disagree on a certain point, the experts must know nothing, and therefore no conclusion can be reached, or that the legitimacy of their entire field is put to question.[38]

If-by-whiskey – an argument that supports both sides of an issue by using terms that are selectively emotionally sensitive.

Incomplete comparison – insufficient information is provided to make a complete comparison.

Inconsistent comparison – different methods of comparison are used, leaving a false impression of the whole comparison.

Intentionality fallacy – the insistence that the ultimate meaning of an expression must be consistent with the intention of the person from whom the communication originated (e.g. a work of fiction that is widely received as a blatant allegory must necessarily not be regarded as such if the author intended it not to be so.)[39]

Lump of labour fallacy – the misconception that there is a fixed amount of work to be done within an economy, which can be distributed to create more or fewer jobs.[40]

Kettle logic – using multiple, jointly inconsistent arguments to defend a position.[dubious – discuss]

Ludic fallacy – the belief that the outcomes of non-regulated random occurrences can be encapsulated by a statistic; a failure to take into account that unknown unknowns have a role in determining the probability of events taking place.[41]

McNamara fallacy (quantitative fallacy) – making a decision based only on quantitative observations, discounting all other considerations.

Mind projection fallacy – subjective judgments are "projected" to be inherent properties of an object, rather than being related to personal perceptions of that object.

Moralistic fallacy – inferring factual conclusions from purely evaluative premises in violation of fact–value distinction. For instance, inferring is from ought is an instance of moralistic fallacy. Moralistic fallacy is the inverse of naturalistic fallacy defined below.

Moving the goalposts (raising the bar) – argument in which evidence presented in response to a specific claim is dismissed and some other (often greater) evidence is demanded.

Nirvana fallacy (perfect-solution fallacy) – solutions to problems are rejected because they are not perfect.

Proof by assertion – a proposition is repeatedly restated regardless of contradiction; sometimes confused with argument from repetition (argumentum ad infinitum, argumentum ad nauseam)

Prosecutor's fallacy – a low probability of false matches does not mean a low probability of some false match being found.

Proving too much – using a form of argument that, if it were valid, could be used to reach an additional, invalid conclusion.

Psychologist's fallacy – an observer presupposes the objectivity of their own perspective when analyzing a behavioral event.

Referential fallacy[42] – assuming all words refer to existing things and that the meaning of words reside within the things they refer to, as opposed to words possibly referring to no real object or that the meaning of words often comes from how they are used.

Reification (concretism, hypostatization, or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness) – a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a "real thing" something that is not a real thing, but merely an idea.

Retrospective determinism – the argument that because an event has occurred under some circumstance, the circumstance must have made its occurrence inevitable.

Slippery slope (thin edge of the wedge, camel's nose) – asserting that a relatively small first step inevitably leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant impact/event that should not happen, thus the first step should not happen. It is, in its essence, an appeal to probability fallacy.[43]

Special pleading – a proponent of a position attempts to cite something as an exemption to a generally accepted rule or principle without justifying the exemption.

Faulty generalizations

Faulty generalization – reach a conclusion from weak premises. Unlike fallacies of relevance, in fallacies of defective induction, the premises are related to the conclusions yet only weakly support the conclusions. A faulty generalization is thus produced.

Accident – an exception to a generalization is ignored.[48]

No true Scotsman – makes a generalization true by changing the generalization to exclude a counterexample.[49]

Cherry picking (suppressed evidence, incomplete evidence) – act of pointing at individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position.[50]

Survivorship bias – a small number of successes of a given process are actively promoted while completely ignoring a large number of failures

False analogy – an argument by analogy in which the analogy is poorly suited.[51]

Hasty generalization (fallacy of insufficient statistics, fallacy of insufficient sample, fallacy of the lonely fact, hasty induction, secundum quid, converse accident, jumping to conclusions) – basing a broad conclusion on a small sample or the making of a determination without all of the information required to do so.[52]

Inductive fallacy – A more general name to some fallacies, such as hasty generalization. It happens when a conclusion is made of premises that lightly support it.

Misleading vividness – involves describing an occurrence in vivid detail, even if it is an exceptional occurrence, to convince someone that it is a problem; this also relies on the appeal to emotion fallacy.

Overwhelming exception – an accurate generalization that comes with qualifications that eliminate so many cases that what remains is much less impressive than the initial statement might have led one to assume.[53]

Thought-terminating cliché – a commonly used phrase, sometimes passing as folk wisdom, used to quell cognitive dissonance, conceal lack of forethought, move on to other topics, etc. – but in any case, to end the debate with a cliché rather than a point.

Questionable cause

Questionable cause is a general type of error with many variants. Its primary basis is the confusion of association with causation, either by inappropriately deducing (or rejecting) causation or a broader failure to properly investigate the cause of an observed effect.

Cum hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin for "with this, therefore because of this"; correlation implies causation; faulty cause/effect, coincidental correlation, correlation without causation) – a faulty assumption that, because there is a correlation between two variables, one caused the other.[54]

Post hoc ergo propter hoc (Latin for "after this, therefore because of this"; temporal sequence implies causation) – X happened, then Y happened; therefore X caused Y.[55]

Wrong direction (reverse causation) – cause and effect are reversed. The cause is said to be the effect and vice versa.[56] The consequence of the phenomenon is claimed to be its root cause.

Ignoring a common cause

Fallacy of the single cause (causal oversimplification[57]) – it is assumed that there is one, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes.

Furtive fallacy – outcomes are asserted to have been caused by the malfeasance of decision makers.

Gambler's fallacy – the incorrect belief that separate, independent events can affect the likelihood of another random event. If a fair coin lands on heads 10 times in a row, the belief that it is "due to the number of times it had previously landed on tails" is incorrect.[58]

Inverse gambler's fallacy

Magical thinking – fallacious attribution of causal relationships between actions and events. In anthropology, it refers primarily to cultural beliefs that ritual, prayer, sacrifice, and taboos will produce specific supernatural consequences. In psychology, it refers to an irrational belief that thoughts by themselves can affect the world or that thinking something corresponds with doing it.

Regression fallacy – ascribes cause where none exists. The flaw is failing to account for natural fluctuations. It is frequently a special kind of post hoc fallacy.

Relevance fallacies

Appeal to the stone (argumentum ad lapidem) – dismissing a claim as absurd without demonstrating proof for its absurdity.[59]

Argument from ignorance (appeal to ignorance, argumentum ad ignorantiam) – assuming that a claim is true because it has not been or cannot be proven false, or vice versa.[60]

Argument from incredulity (appeal to common sense) – "I cannot imagine how this could be true; therefore, it must be false."[61]

Argument from repetition (argumentum ad nauseam, argumentum ad infinitum) – repeating an argument until nobody cares to discuss it any more;[62][63] sometimes confused with proof by assertion

Argument from silence (argumentum ex silentio) – assuming that a claim is true based on the absence of textual or spoken evidence from an authoritative source, or vice versa.[64]

Ignoratio elenchi (irrelevant conclusion, missing the point) – an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question.[65]

Red herring fallacies

A red herring fallacy, one of the main subtypes of fallacies of relevance, is an error in logic where a proposition is, or is intended to be, misleading in order to make irrelevant or false inferences. In the general case any logical inference based on fake arguments, intended to replace the lack of real arguments or to replace implicitly the subject of the discussion.[66][67]

Red herring – a speaker attempts to distract an audience by deviating from the topic at hand by introducing a separate argument the speaker believes is easier to speak to.[68] Argument given in response to another argument, which is irrelevant and draws attention away from the subject of argument. See also irrelevant conclusion.