Fallacy of amphibolia

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The fallacy of amphibolism in traditional logic denotes a fallacy based on ambiguous grammatical constructions. A premise is used for a conclusion that represents a proven or generally accepted assertion in an interpretation of its grammatical structure, while another interpretation is required for the validity of the final form.

history

Aristotle treated the amphibolism in his work Sophisti elenchi ( Greek Περὶ σοφιστικῶν ἐλένχων peri sophistikon elenchon " Sophistic refutations ") as a linguistic source of fallacies together with homonymy . In the case of a fallacy based on homonymy, however, the ambiguity of a single word is relevant, not that of a grammatical construction.

A famous example of amphibolism is the Latin version of the following oracle of Pythia (attributed to Ennius):
Aio te, Aeacida, Romanos vincere posse.

Translation
options : 1.) I say that you, Aeacide, can defeat the Romans.
2.) I say that the Romans can defeat you, Aeacide.

In Latin there is ambiguity here, because in an accusativus cum infinitivo there is not only one subject accusative but also another accusative. and thus it cannot be decided here whether Aeacida or Romas is the subject. The oracles of the Oracle of Delphi were famous for the often fatal ambiguity of their pronouncements , see Famous Delphic oracles .

Kant's Amphiboly of Reflection Concepts

In the appendix to the Transcendental Analytic titled Amphibolie der Reflexungsbedingungen , the section of the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), in which the German philosopher Immanuel Kant deals with concepts and judgments, he deals with specific amphibolias, on which he addresses the dogmatic positions Rationalism returns. The concepts of reflection are general forms for the comparison of ideas, but they have different meanings when applied to the mind and to sensuality:

“The reflection (reflexio) [...] is the awareness of the relationship between given ideas and our various sources of knowledge, through which alone their relationship to one another can be correctly determined. The first question before any further treatment of our conception is this: in which faculty of knowledge do they belong together? Is it the mind, or is it the senses before which they are connected or compared? "

- Immanuel Kant: AA III, 214

The amphibolism of reflection concepts is caused by an insufficient distinction between concepts belonging to the understanding (understanding concepts, categories) and those belonging to sensuality (from perception, perceptio , i.e. concepts obtained from empirical intuition, experience). The “transcendental reflection” ( Immanuel Kant: AA III, 215 ) should protect against this confusion .

Kant is one of the reflection concepts:

  • Identity and diversity
  • Attunement and conflict
  • the inside and the outside
  • Matter and form

1. Example of monotony and difference: Two drops of water (Immanuel Kant: AA III, 216) are to be distinguished from each other as a phenomenon (empirically), even if they have exactly the same shape and are otherwise qualitatively identical, simply because they are different places take in spacetime. However, their representations are completely identical; H. considered logically “only one thing”. In this context Kant criticizes Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and his principium identitatis indiscernibilium and assumes that Leibniz wrongly understood the phenomena as " things in themselves ".

2nd example The inner and outer: Kant explains the Leibnizian concept of the monad by conceiving it as an inner analogue to the concept of substance in space, i.e. to the constancy of matter. Leibniz imagined these substances as noumena "In an object of the pure understanding there is only that inwardly that has no relation at all to anything different from it" ( Immanuel Kant: AA III, 217 )

literature

  • Douglas J. Soccio, Vincent E. Barry: Practical Logic: An Antidote for Uncritical Thinking Wadsworth Publishing, 1991, ISBN 978-0-03-073907-1
  • Michael Nerurkar: Amphibolism of reflection concepts and transcendental reflection. The Amphibolie Chapter in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Würzburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8260-4786-2

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Immanuel Kant, Collected Writings. Ed .: Vol. 1-22 Prussian Academy of Sciences, Vol. 23 German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, from Vol. 24 Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Berlin 1900ff., AA III, 214  / KrV B 316.
  2. ↑ Immanuel Kant, Collected Writings. Ed .: Vol. 1-22 Prussian Academy of Sciences, Vol. 23 German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, from Vol. 24 Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Berlin 1900ff., AA III, 215  / KrV B 317.
  3. ↑ Immanuel Kant, Collected Writings. Ed .: Vol. 1-22 Prussian Academy of Sciences, Vol. 23 German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, from Vol. 24 Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Berlin 1900ff., AA III, 216  / KrV B 319f ..
  4. ↑ Immanuel Kant, Collected Writings. Ed .: Vol. 1-22 Prussian Academy of Sciences, Vol. 23 German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, from Vol. 24 Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Berlin 1900ff., AA III, 217  / KrV B 321f ..