As J notes, there are fallacies of equivocation. J quotes from Ambrose Bierce.
Indeed, 'fallacies' are a good thing to consider. I think it is in the first Kant lecture on reasoning (I would need to doublecheck) that Grice says that philosophers should spend more time studying fallacies ("Aspects of Reason"). This was 1977. Since then, philosophers have been TOO preoccupied with fallacies. If you get to a philosophy department which is into 'informal logic' it is very likely that any undergraduate course in logic will include a big section on fallacies.
I'm not sure what Grice would say about equivocation qua fallacy, since he was so cautious as to not multiplying the meaning of words.
Take equivocality. He applies this -- 'the equivocality thesis', he calls it in the Kant lecturest -- to "must".
Necessity (as realised by 'must') is, Grice realises, 'univocal'. He wants to say 'aequivocal' in that the same ('aequi-') voice ('must') is used for two different realms which he refers to as the 'practical' and the 'alethic'. Etc.
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Yes Mr JL informal fallacies are usually trite and obvious to anyone who managed to pass Logic 101 at Bonehead JC, or read Bergmann, etc YET...they still appear, especially in advertising, political speech and blog rants (generalizations especially). Equivocation however seems a bit different than the usual Ad-whateverius in that it involves clever use of language (as with Ben Franklin's, "If don't hang together, we will hang separately").
ReplyDeleteThough as Bierce's pseudo-syllogism shows, Equiv. may become a type of formal or quasi-formal fallacy. That was sort of my point: at times (and maybe the Gricester would have agreed) there seems to some implicit/unstated rules on what words can be introduced into arguments. Even with Franklin's trite saying: how do we know which "hang" he means? I say...it's syntactic, rather than ...semantic/logical. The syntax in a sense governs whether we read it as "hang" as in hangin' out, or "hang" as in from a hemp necktie. Many other examples could be provided (as you are aware, most likely: but most in philosophastry biz aren't).
Yes. It's fun. Surely, I don't distinguish between formal/informal. The whole point of being able to go to a party (at the swimming-pool 'library') is that you can wear 'formal' or 'informal'. I find the distinction (as used by logicians) pedantic.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the examples by Bierce and what's his name, Franklin.
Yes, we can analyse a few fallacies. It's odd that Griceians have not, much.
E.g.
"He was caught in the grip of a vice".
"A vice is a tool implemented by carpenters"
"In his case, it was gluttony".
----
"He was caught by a carpenter."
A friend called Deirdre likes the 'ambiguity' of "bank" (I don't!).
"They met in the bank".
"It was a Sunday"
----
"They met in the bank of the RIVER", then.
----
----
Another of Grice's examples:
"Those spots mean measles"
--- "If you mean, you conversationally implicate"
--- Therefore, those spots are holding a conversation (with the doctor).
----
And so on.
Recall that Grice is into "must". He wants to say that
"It must rain tomorrow"
and
"You mustn's kill your neighbour after you covet his wife"
----
Therefore therer are THREE 'musts' involved: the it, which should rain, and you, who has two obligations.
---
A Cambridge linguist has a power-point presentation on this. She is considering "futurity" but seems to be one of the only people who seriously quote from Grice's "equivocality thesis". Alas, she is no philosopher, so she really doesn't care! (I mean: when she introduces the "Acc" operator -- I can imagine that none of the people witnessing the power point presentation would care to expand on the mysteries involved that this author just touches! I suppose that's because she is from a "Cantab." 'scientific' milieu, where Grice is Oxon-philo to the backbone (his backbone, that is).
Another:
"You are the cream in my coffee"
"My cholesterol is high"
----
"You are the cause of my height in the cholesterol of mine".