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Margarine is better than nothing Nothing is better than butter Therefore margarine is better than butter
I have to say that the above passage is logical and correct: Margarine > Nothing > Butter
It's that simple. I don't see equivocation in it.
Whoever wrote this passage was a fool, because he or she was using enthymatic language: Implied bread was in the equation. I like to use butter in my skillet instead of margarine.
How about this one?
Libraries contain books, and books contain knowledge. Knowledge is power and power is energy. Energy, frozen in one place, becomes mass. Too much mass in one place creates a black hole. Therefore The Library of Congress should be a black hole! (maybe that is why Wikipedia is gaining popularity, nobody can get anything useful out of the Library of Congress!) - KeyStroke
Could someone add a few more words to the intro to explain what this is actually about? Is it used in logical deduction, writing, philosophy? Stevage 11:20, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I think its worth noting one of the most frequent usages of this fallacy, when politicians and activists attack evolution as being "only a theory." 66.44.106.4 17:36, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
{{ Help Me}}
In elaborating on the explanation of how and why the quotation from Shakespeare was a significant comment on the events of those times, I inserted what I thought was a useful comment. I have found that the additionnal piece that I offered has not appeared in the article; but, it still appears in a "hidden form" (within my editing page) as follows:
The two ends of this piece have been added to my original piece: namely, (a) ": < ! - - What doctrine does this refer to?" at the beginning, and (b) "- - >" at the end.
I am new to Wikipedia, and I have been unable to find any explanation for the "< - -" and "- - >" coding.
I am supposing that it is either a case of someone suggesting that I place the short piece in a new sub-section entitled "What doctrine does this refer to?" (which I think is a very good idea), ot that somebody is asking me to supply some supporting evience (which I can do, from the article of Malloch).
Either way, I am more than happy to perform whatever actions are required of me. I simply don't understand the "< - -" and "- - >" coding, and I would be really grateful if somebody could explain the meaning and/or the intention of that coding to me. Thannks (in anticipation) cogtrue 00:38, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Is this true? I typed it up and was going to include it but paused because these types of riddles are more of a play on the definition than the word.
Equivocation is often used in riddles. A fairly common example:
Riddle: You are standing in a room with nothing but a table and a mirror. There are no doors, windows, holes and there is no obvious way to leave the room. How do you get out?
Solution: You look in the mirror to see what you saw, use the saw to cut the table in half, put the halves together to make a whole and climb out.
Equivocation is used twice in the solution: once for the word "saw" and once for the word "whole". It is worthy to note that the extra definition of "whole" plays on its homophone "hole".
MrHen. 18:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
What does a man love more than life?
Hate more than death or mortal strife?
That which contented men desire,
The poor have, the rich require,
The miser spends, the spendthrift saves,
And all men carry to their graves?
(Leemings, 1953, 201)
The answer, Nothing, can only be seen through a kaleidoscope of equivocations.
A Jackass is a male member of the species Equus asinus
What does that make a female member? A Jillass? -- 75.49.222.55 04:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
The Jackass example could mislead people, because there are two logical fallacies in it, not one. There is equivocation on the term 'Jackass', but there is also a fallacy of the form 'X => Y, therefore Y => X' (not sure what this fallacy should be called). Specifically, the argument switches between 'Jackasses have long ears' and 'Things that have long ears are jackasses'. Unless anyone objects, I will replace this with a clearer example. TheAstonishingBadger ( talk) 00:04, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
It seems that there should be further delineation between equivocation and amphiboly. Vckngs7 ( talk) 23:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
As English is not my first language I have always been baffled by the lack of distinction between "medicine" and "illicit narcotics" - in everyday language they're both simply referred to as "drugs". While the term "drugs" can refer to any chemical with biological activity and as such encompasses both groups, illicit AND therapeutic, I would argue that "drugs" functions as a homonym because in normal conversation it will specifically refer to one OR the other.
However, now and then pharmaceutical treatments spark controversy and in the ensuing debate the word "drugs" is often used as a weapon because it evokes an emotional response in the collective subconscious (Drugs are bad. M'kay?) Furthermore the fundamental conceptual difference between illicit narcotics and medicine may be lost on a lot of people, and more still perceive the distinction as blurry at best, the lack of proper words is in itself preventing people from separating the two. This makes "drugs" a very effective rhetorical tool, and if we consider "drugs" to be a homonym it makes this a very subtle equivocation.
OlaIsacsson ( talk) 19:52, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
With your example, there are two equiprobable possibilities:
(a) More oblivious than overlooking (overlook being a janus word btw. :) ) Interesting to hear, though, that it may have been a conscious effort to mix the two concepts up.
(b) Close, but not exactly as "illicit narcotics" and "medicine" are not really antonyms, they are just grouped together by physical properties instead of purpose. An absurd but illustrative example might be as follows: Imagine replacing the words for various stick-shaped weapons (arrow, spear, club et.c.) AND any stick-shaped sporting utensil (hockey sticks, baseball bats et.c.) and just refer to all of them as sticks, then in a generation or so we'd start to see mothers concerned about the extent to which young people play with sticks. Clubs and spears might be a bit too anachronistic to cause this effect in reality, but again this is just to illustrate my point they all are sticks but it is an irrelevant grouping since whenever you would talk about "sticks" you would mean either one or the other, not both. Today "sticks" have only one meaning: any stick-shaped objects. In the aforementioned case this would still be true (as it is for drugs), but in everyday speech "sticks" would have two meanings: scary, nasty weapons for gruesome gore violence and sports accessories. OlaIsacsson ( talk) 10:28, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Apart from its use as a technical term in logic, equivocation can also mean the use of language that is ambiguous, i.e. equally susceptible of being understood in two different ways. There is usually a strong connotation that the ambiguity is being used with intention to deceive.
This type of equivocation was famously mocked in the porter's speech in Shakespeare's Macbeth, in which the porter directly alludes to the practice of deceiving under oath by means of equivocation.
Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. (Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 3)
See, for example Robert Southwell and Henry Garnet, author of A Treatise of Equivocation (published secretly c. 1595) — to whom, it is supposed, Shakespeare was specifically referring. citation needed Shakespeare made the reference to priests because the religious use of equivocation was well-known in those periods of early modern England (eg under James VI/I) when it was a capital offence for a Roman Catholic priest to enter England.
A Jesuit priest would equivocate in order to protect himself from the secular authorities without (in his eyes) committing the sin of lying. For example, he could use the ambiguity of the word "a" (meaning "any" or "one") to say "I swear I am not a priest", because he could have a particular priest in mind who he was not. That is, in his mind, he was saying "I swear I am not one priest" (e.g. "I am not Father Brown".) This was theorized by casuists as the doctrine of mental reservation.
According to Malloch (1966) citation needed , this doctrine of permissible "equivocation" did not originate with the Jesuits.
Malloch cites a short treatise, in cap. Humanae aures, that had been written by Martin Azpilcueta (also known as Doctor Navarrus), an Augustinian who was serving as a consultant to the Apostolic Penitentiary. It was published in Rome in 1584. The first Jesuit influence upon this doctrine was not until 1609, "when Suarez rejected Azpilcueta's basic proof and supplied another" (Malloch, p.145; speaking of Francisco Suárez).
One typical form of applied equivocation is demonstrated in the following valid, but untrue syllogism, which revolves around the usage of the homonym "theory", when applied to evolution:
Evolution is a theory. Theories are uncertain. Therefore evolution is uncertain.
I am not sure whether or not the words 'valid, but untrue' constitute NPOV.
It is my view that the validity of evolution and the validity of intelligent design are both up to one's opinion. Religious persons may find the quoted statement to be offensive, and it is improper in the world of science to consider a theory to be certain; it wouldn't be a theory if it were.
Here and later the article transparently implies that there is no scientific uncertainty considering the theory of evolution.
The overall goal of this fallacious syllogism is to create the impression that there is a level of scientific uncertainty regarding evolution.
Among physicists and chemists, the theory of evolution is heavily disputed (as opposed to biologists, who generally accept the theory for the sake of their studies). A strong argument considers universal entropy. Discussions and experiments yield that there is not enough universal disorder to balance the amount of order that exists on earth alone in the form of organized life forms.
These references should clearly show that there is an opinion-war among religious people, namely Judeo-Christian, and evolutionists. Secondly, they provide opinions about universal entropy and evolution that should help in the discussion of this topic.
This is my first talk post ever, forgive me if I'm an idiot, and please help me with my formatting. Derek ( talk) 15:32, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
It is my view that the validity of evolution and the validity of intelligent design are both up to one's opinion.
and it is improper in the world of science to consider a theory to be certain; it wouldn't be a theory if it were.
Among physicists and chemists, the theory of evolution is heavily disputed (as opposed to biologists, who generally accept the theory for the sake of their studies).
>A strong argument considers universal entropy. Discussions and experiments yield that there is not enough universal disorder to balance the amount of order that exists on earth alone in the form of organized life forms.
These references should clearly show that there is an opinion-war among religious people, namely Judeo-Christian, and evolutionists.
Isn't evolution speculative? Seriously, crack open a Biology book, turn to the chapters on systematics and phylogeny and see all the times the book uses the words may, might, perhaps, etc. Whether or not it is true, evolution has not been proven, is still a theory (as opposed to a law) and therefore is based on speculation, educated or not.
-Andrew Knox, 19:19, March 08, 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.28.140.5 ( talk) 03:19, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
"It is my view that the validity of evolution and the validity of intelligent design are both up to one's opinion."
First, the views of editors are irrelevant. Second, virtually every claim you make is factually false. Third, see the Wikipedia policy on undue weight. -- 96.248.226.133 ( talk) 04:38, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
There are no omissions in the initial sentences. The augmentations of "to put" and "bread" are superfluous and can be eliminated for the example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.75.103.189 ( talk) 01:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Is this concept called amphibology as well? If yes, please clarify the text and, what is more important, provide the references.
This is especially important, since some examples seem to be those of "amphiboly" as defined in the intro. Especially keeping in mind that the wikipedia article " amphibology" differs in definition. Lolo Sambinho ( talk) 15:33, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
May I suggest that in the introduction, the term "polysemic words" be followed by "(words with multiple meanings.)" and "amphibology" with "(ambiguous sentences.)"
(Unless an expert feels it necessary to improve on these.)
It is of great help to the majority of readers if technical terms are explained in situ. Darkman101 ( talk) 06:33, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
As there were no comments I have now done this. Darkman101 ( talk) 08:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
![]() | This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||
|
![]() | Daily page views
|
Margarine is better than nothing Nothing is better than butter Therefore margarine is better than butter
I have to say that the above passage is logical and correct: Margarine > Nothing > Butter
It's that simple. I don't see equivocation in it.
Whoever wrote this passage was a fool, because he or she was using enthymatic language: Implied bread was in the equation. I like to use butter in my skillet instead of margarine.
How about this one?
Libraries contain books, and books contain knowledge. Knowledge is power and power is energy. Energy, frozen in one place, becomes mass. Too much mass in one place creates a black hole. Therefore The Library of Congress should be a black hole! (maybe that is why Wikipedia is gaining popularity, nobody can get anything useful out of the Library of Congress!) - KeyStroke
Could someone add a few more words to the intro to explain what this is actually about? Is it used in logical deduction, writing, philosophy? Stevage 11:20, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
I think its worth noting one of the most frequent usages of this fallacy, when politicians and activists attack evolution as being "only a theory." 66.44.106.4 17:36, 15 April 2006 (UTC)
{{ Help Me}}
In elaborating on the explanation of how and why the quotation from Shakespeare was a significant comment on the events of those times, I inserted what I thought was a useful comment. I have found that the additionnal piece that I offered has not appeared in the article; but, it still appears in a "hidden form" (within my editing page) as follows:
The two ends of this piece have been added to my original piece: namely, (a) ": < ! - - What doctrine does this refer to?" at the beginning, and (b) "- - >" at the end.
I am new to Wikipedia, and I have been unable to find any explanation for the "< - -" and "- - >" coding.
I am supposing that it is either a case of someone suggesting that I place the short piece in a new sub-section entitled "What doctrine does this refer to?" (which I think is a very good idea), ot that somebody is asking me to supply some supporting evience (which I can do, from the article of Malloch).
Either way, I am more than happy to perform whatever actions are required of me. I simply don't understand the "< - -" and "- - >" coding, and I would be really grateful if somebody could explain the meaning and/or the intention of that coding to me. Thannks (in anticipation) cogtrue 00:38, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
Is this true? I typed it up and was going to include it but paused because these types of riddles are more of a play on the definition than the word.
Equivocation is often used in riddles. A fairly common example:
Riddle: You are standing in a room with nothing but a table and a mirror. There are no doors, windows, holes and there is no obvious way to leave the room. How do you get out?
Solution: You look in the mirror to see what you saw, use the saw to cut the table in half, put the halves together to make a whole and climb out.
Equivocation is used twice in the solution: once for the word "saw" and once for the word "whole". It is worthy to note that the extra definition of "whole" plays on its homophone "hole".
MrHen. 18:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
What does a man love more than life?
Hate more than death or mortal strife?
That which contented men desire,
The poor have, the rich require,
The miser spends, the spendthrift saves,
And all men carry to their graves?
(Leemings, 1953, 201)
The answer, Nothing, can only be seen through a kaleidoscope of equivocations.
A Jackass is a male member of the species Equus asinus
What does that make a female member? A Jillass? -- 75.49.222.55 04:29, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
The Jackass example could mislead people, because there are two logical fallacies in it, not one. There is equivocation on the term 'Jackass', but there is also a fallacy of the form 'X => Y, therefore Y => X' (not sure what this fallacy should be called). Specifically, the argument switches between 'Jackasses have long ears' and 'Things that have long ears are jackasses'. Unless anyone objects, I will replace this with a clearer example. TheAstonishingBadger ( talk) 00:04, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
It seems that there should be further delineation between equivocation and amphiboly. Vckngs7 ( talk) 23:08, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
As English is not my first language I have always been baffled by the lack of distinction between "medicine" and "illicit narcotics" - in everyday language they're both simply referred to as "drugs". While the term "drugs" can refer to any chemical with biological activity and as such encompasses both groups, illicit AND therapeutic, I would argue that "drugs" functions as a homonym because in normal conversation it will specifically refer to one OR the other.
However, now and then pharmaceutical treatments spark controversy and in the ensuing debate the word "drugs" is often used as a weapon because it evokes an emotional response in the collective subconscious (Drugs are bad. M'kay?) Furthermore the fundamental conceptual difference between illicit narcotics and medicine may be lost on a lot of people, and more still perceive the distinction as blurry at best, the lack of proper words is in itself preventing people from separating the two. This makes "drugs" a very effective rhetorical tool, and if we consider "drugs" to be a homonym it makes this a very subtle equivocation.
OlaIsacsson ( talk) 19:52, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
With your example, there are two equiprobable possibilities:
(a) More oblivious than overlooking (overlook being a janus word btw. :) ) Interesting to hear, though, that it may have been a conscious effort to mix the two concepts up.
(b) Close, but not exactly as "illicit narcotics" and "medicine" are not really antonyms, they are just grouped together by physical properties instead of purpose. An absurd but illustrative example might be as follows: Imagine replacing the words for various stick-shaped weapons (arrow, spear, club et.c.) AND any stick-shaped sporting utensil (hockey sticks, baseball bats et.c.) and just refer to all of them as sticks, then in a generation or so we'd start to see mothers concerned about the extent to which young people play with sticks. Clubs and spears might be a bit too anachronistic to cause this effect in reality, but again this is just to illustrate my point they all are sticks but it is an irrelevant grouping since whenever you would talk about "sticks" you would mean either one or the other, not both. Today "sticks" have only one meaning: any stick-shaped objects. In the aforementioned case this would still be true (as it is for drugs), but in everyday speech "sticks" would have two meanings: scary, nasty weapons for gruesome gore violence and sports accessories. OlaIsacsson ( talk) 10:28, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
Apart from its use as a technical term in logic, equivocation can also mean the use of language that is ambiguous, i.e. equally susceptible of being understood in two different ways. There is usually a strong connotation that the ambiguity is being used with intention to deceive.
This type of equivocation was famously mocked in the porter's speech in Shakespeare's Macbeth, in which the porter directly alludes to the practice of deceiving under oath by means of equivocation.
Faith, here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against either scale; who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. (Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 3)
See, for example Robert Southwell and Henry Garnet, author of A Treatise of Equivocation (published secretly c. 1595) — to whom, it is supposed, Shakespeare was specifically referring. citation needed Shakespeare made the reference to priests because the religious use of equivocation was well-known in those periods of early modern England (eg under James VI/I) when it was a capital offence for a Roman Catholic priest to enter England.
A Jesuit priest would equivocate in order to protect himself from the secular authorities without (in his eyes) committing the sin of lying. For example, he could use the ambiguity of the word "a" (meaning "any" or "one") to say "I swear I am not a priest", because he could have a particular priest in mind who he was not. That is, in his mind, he was saying "I swear I am not one priest" (e.g. "I am not Father Brown".) This was theorized by casuists as the doctrine of mental reservation.
According to Malloch (1966) citation needed , this doctrine of permissible "equivocation" did not originate with the Jesuits.
Malloch cites a short treatise, in cap. Humanae aures, that had been written by Martin Azpilcueta (also known as Doctor Navarrus), an Augustinian who was serving as a consultant to the Apostolic Penitentiary. It was published in Rome in 1584. The first Jesuit influence upon this doctrine was not until 1609, "when Suarez rejected Azpilcueta's basic proof and supplied another" (Malloch, p.145; speaking of Francisco Suárez).
One typical form of applied equivocation is demonstrated in the following valid, but untrue syllogism, which revolves around the usage of the homonym "theory", when applied to evolution:
Evolution is a theory. Theories are uncertain. Therefore evolution is uncertain.
I am not sure whether or not the words 'valid, but untrue' constitute NPOV.
It is my view that the validity of evolution and the validity of intelligent design are both up to one's opinion. Religious persons may find the quoted statement to be offensive, and it is improper in the world of science to consider a theory to be certain; it wouldn't be a theory if it were.
Here and later the article transparently implies that there is no scientific uncertainty considering the theory of evolution.
The overall goal of this fallacious syllogism is to create the impression that there is a level of scientific uncertainty regarding evolution.
Among physicists and chemists, the theory of evolution is heavily disputed (as opposed to biologists, who generally accept the theory for the sake of their studies). A strong argument considers universal entropy. Discussions and experiments yield that there is not enough universal disorder to balance the amount of order that exists on earth alone in the form of organized life forms.
These references should clearly show that there is an opinion-war among religious people, namely Judeo-Christian, and evolutionists. Secondly, they provide opinions about universal entropy and evolution that should help in the discussion of this topic.
This is my first talk post ever, forgive me if I'm an idiot, and please help me with my formatting. Derek ( talk) 15:32, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
It is my view that the validity of evolution and the validity of intelligent design are both up to one's opinion.
and it is improper in the world of science to consider a theory to be certain; it wouldn't be a theory if it were.
Among physicists and chemists, the theory of evolution is heavily disputed (as opposed to biologists, who generally accept the theory for the sake of their studies).
>A strong argument considers universal entropy. Discussions and experiments yield that there is not enough universal disorder to balance the amount of order that exists on earth alone in the form of organized life forms.
These references should clearly show that there is an opinion-war among religious people, namely Judeo-Christian, and evolutionists.
Isn't evolution speculative? Seriously, crack open a Biology book, turn to the chapters on systematics and phylogeny and see all the times the book uses the words may, might, perhaps, etc. Whether or not it is true, evolution has not been proven, is still a theory (as opposed to a law) and therefore is based on speculation, educated or not.
-Andrew Knox, 19:19, March 08, 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.28.140.5 ( talk) 03:19, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
"It is my view that the validity of evolution and the validity of intelligent design are both up to one's opinion."
First, the views of editors are irrelevant. Second, virtually every claim you make is factually false. Third, see the Wikipedia policy on undue weight. -- 96.248.226.133 ( talk) 04:38, 3 February 2013 (UTC)
There are no omissions in the initial sentences. The augmentations of "to put" and "bread" are superfluous and can be eliminated for the example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.75.103.189 ( talk) 01:20, 8 September 2010 (UTC)
Is this concept called amphibology as well? If yes, please clarify the text and, what is more important, provide the references.
This is especially important, since some examples seem to be those of "amphiboly" as defined in the intro. Especially keeping in mind that the wikipedia article " amphibology" differs in definition. Lolo Sambinho ( talk) 15:33, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
May I suggest that in the introduction, the term "polysemic words" be followed by "(words with multiple meanings.)" and "amphibology" with "(ambiguous sentences.)"
(Unless an expert feels it necessary to improve on these.)
It is of great help to the majority of readers if technical terms are explained in situ. Darkman101 ( talk) 06:33, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
As there were no comments I have now done this. Darkman101 ( talk) 08:01, 3 May 2012 (UTC)