Part IV:
Watching out against the verbal fallacies – 1
We are done with our discussion of the first two broad categories of the logical fallacies, namely the material fallacies and fallacies of relevance. This time we will take up the third category: the verbal fallacies, or the false statements or conclusions that result when words are used improperly or ambiguously. They are the fallacies of ambiguity, equivocation, amphiboly, composition, division, and abstraction.
The problem with verbal fallacies is not so much faulty logical thinking as the inadvertent or deliberate lack of clarity in language. This generally results from the wrong or slippery use of words, whether spoken or written, and it sometimes happens by accident, as in a slip of the tongue, an error in penmanship, or hitting the wrong word processor key. Normally, no great harm is done in such cases. When used deliberately with malice or ill intent, however, these misuses of language can trick or mislead people into making wrong decisions or choices.
Let’s now take up the first two kinds of verbal fallacies.
Fallacy of ambiguity. The use of undefined words or words with a vague meaning constitutes a fallacy of ambiguity. In retrospect, let’s take a look at this campaign slogan on radio of a presidential candidate in the 2010 Philippine national elections: “Candidate X: Pinili ng Taong Bayan” (“Chosen by the People”). These obvious questions arise: What was he chosen for and in what context and in what manner? And who were those people who chose him and how many were they? And even if they chose him, so what? The answers to these questions are perplexing and unclear, thus making such slogans fallacious.
Another case of an arresting verbal ambiguity was this slogan of another presidential candidate on radio that same year: “Panata Ko—Tapusin Ang Kahirapan!” (“My Pledge—Put an End to Poverty!”). It’s a magnificent but vague commitment—but how plausible is it? Precisely how would the candidate end such an intractable sociological problem as poverty? What if the listener happened to be enormously rich—would that promise still apply to him or her? Pledges like this, no matter how well-intentioned, constitute a verbal fallacy by looseness of language.
There was also this slogan in the TV commercial of a senatorial candidate during that campaign season: “Gusto Ko, Happy Ka!” (“I Want You to Be Happy!”). Sounds arresting and disarmingly candid, but what does it really mean? And how does the candidate’s desire to make you happy relate to his fitness for the position he’s gunning for? The problem with this slogan lies in its vague, seemingly child-like message.
On a less political note, the fallacy of ambiguity also results when the writer’s definitions of the words he uses don’t match those of the reader’s. Take this newspaper passage about a supposedly Stone Age tribe in the Philippines: “The sociologists visited the Tasadays and took photographs of their half-naked women, but they were not properly developed.” (How was that again? Which or what were not properly developed? The women’s bodily features or the exposed photographic negative?)
Equivocation. People commit this fallacy when they loosely use a word in more than one sense, yet give the impression that they mean only one. Since they sometimes can’t even differentiate the meanings, they may not even know they are equivocating. Here’s an example: “All fair things are virtuous. My fiancée is fair; therefore, my fiancée is virtuous.”
Here, the word “fair” is being used in two senses: in the first, “impartial and honest,” and in the second, “lovely and pleasing.” Likewise, the word “virtuous” is also being used in two senses: in the first, “righteous and morally upright,” in the second, “chaste.” Both premise and conclusion therefore aren’t valid here, so the statement is actually a verbal fallacy.
Part IV:
Watching out against the verbal fallacies – 2
We will now discuss the last four of the six kinds of verbal fallacies, namely the fallacies of amphiboly, composition, division, and abstraction. Together with the fallacies of ambiguity and of equivocation that we took up earlier, they comprise the third broad category of logical fallacies—false statements or conclusions that result when words are used improperly or ambiguously.
Amphiboly. This fallacy results from ambiguous or faulty grammatical structures. The error isn’t with a specific word but with how the words connect or fail to connect. English is particularly susceptible to amphiboly because its vocabulary is so rich and its sentence structures so flexible. Some examples:
A grimly humorous example: “Big Bargain: New highchair for toddler with a missing leg” (Without ambiguity: “Big Bargain: New toddler’s highchair with a missing leg”). Here, we have a misplaced modifying phrase that needed to be relocated to its proper place.
A classic case of amphiboly arises when the adverb “only” is variously positioned in these sentences: “She only wrote that.” “Only she wrote that.” “She wrote only that.” “She wrote that only.” When “only” is positioned such that the statement yields a meaning other than what’s intended, that statement is an amphiboly.
And newspaper headlines are often inadvertent purveyors of amphiboly: “Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant”; “Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge”; “Two Convicts Evade Noose: Jury Hung.”
Composition. This is the fallacy of guilelessly assuming that a group of things or actions as a whole will have the same attributes as the individual things or actions that comprise it. Take these examples:
“A story made up of good paragraphs is a good story.” (Not necessarily, of course!)
“If someone stands up out of his seat at a basketball game, he can see better. Therefore, if everyone stands up they can all see better.”
“An elephant eats more food than a human; therefore, elephants as a group eat more food than do all the humans in the world.” (Do your math; we humans grossly outnumber the elephants, so we consume more food than they overall.)
Division. The converse of the fallacy of composition, the fallacy of division wrongly assumes that the individuals in a group have the same qualities as the group itself. In reality, though, what is true of the whole isn’t necessarily true of its parts. Consider these fallacies of division:
“The universe has existed for 15 billion years. The universe is made out of molecules. Therefore, each of the molecules in the universe has existed for 15 billion years.
“Female professionals in the Philippines are paid less than their male counterparts. Therefore, my Mom earns less money than my Dad.” (Not necessarily!)
Abstraction. This fallacy is the classical error of postulating or believing that everything that one comprehends through pure reasoning can actually happen in reality. Take the audacious illogic of this quote in a familiar inspirational poster: “Everything your mind can conceive, your body can achieve.” Sounds like a very desirable possibility, but saying it is actually the height of naiveté or ignorance about the ways of the world.
Another form of the abstraction fallacy is taking a quoted statement out of context. For example, a London newspaper carried this negative critique of a theatrical performance: “I couldn’t help feeling that, for all the energy, razzmatazz and technical wizardry, the audience had been shortchanged.” However, the stage play promoters deviously pared down that statement to this blurb in their newspaper ads for that play: “…having ‘energy, razzmatazz and technical wizardry.’” That’s a fallacy of abstraction that shamelessly distorts the intent and spirit of the original statement.
Vigilance over language—whether our own or those of others—is actually our only sure and effective line of defense against the verbal fallacies.
These two essays essay appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Education Section of the September 14, 2017 issue (print edition only) of The Manila Times, © 2017 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
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