AabahranFallacies of Ambiguity
Philosophy · by Herald Dilorry Anah
Ambiguous Language
In addition to the fallacies of relevance and presumption examined in previous tomes, which are only a few of several patterns of incorrect reasoning that arise from the imprecise use of language, I shall discuss ambiguous language. An ambiguous word, phrase, or sentence is one that has two or more distinct meanings. The inferential relationship between the propositions included in a single argument will be sure to hold only if we are careful to employ exactly the same meaning in each of them. The fallacies of ambiguity all involve a confusion of two or more different senses.
Equivocation
An equivocation trades upon the use of an ambiguous word or phrase in one of its meanings in one of the propositions of an argument but also in another of its meanings in a second proposition.
Amphiboly
An amphiboly can occur even when every term in an argument is univocal, if the grammatical construction of a sentence creates its own ambiguity.
Accent
The fallacy of accent arises from an ambiguity produced by a shift of spoken or written emphasis.
Composition
The fallacy of composition involves an inference from the attribution of some feature to every individual member of a class (or part of a greater whole) to the possession of the same feature by the entire class (or whole).
Division
Similarly, the fallacy of division involves an inference from the attribution of some feature to an entire class (or whole) to the possession of the same feature by each of its individual members (or parts).
Avoiding Fallacies
Informal fallacies of all varieties can seriously interfere with our ability to arrive at the truth. Whether they are committed inadvertently in the course of an individual's own thinking or deliberately employed in an effort to manipulate others, each may persuade without providing legitimate grounds for the truth of its conclusion. But knowing what the fallacies are affords us some protection in either case. If we can identify several of the most common patterns of incorrect reasoning, we are less likely to slip into them ourselves or to be fooled by anyone else.