Fallacies of Ambiguity

Question 1

Fallacy of Equivocation

Answer 1

A fallacy in which two or more meanings of a word or phrase are used, accidentally or deliberately, in different parts of an argument.

Question 2

Fallacy of Amphiboly

Answer 2

occurs when one is arguing from premises whose formulations are ambiguous because of their grammatical construction.

• Amphiboly = “two in a lump”
• A statement is amphibolous when its meaning is indeterminate because of the loose or awkward way in which its words are combined.
• An amphibolous statement may be true in one interpretation and false in another. When it is stated as premise with the interpretation that makes it true, and a conclusion is drawn from it on the interpretation that makes it false, then the fallacy of amphiboly has been committed.

Question 3

Fallacy of Accent

Answer 3

Sometimes, however, the shift is the result of a change in emphasis on a single word or phrase, whose meaning does not change. When the premise of an argument relies on one possible emphasis, but a conclusion drawn from it relies on the meaning of the same words emphasized differently

Question 4

Fallacy of Composition

Answer 4

A fallacy of ambiguity in which an argument erroneously assigns attributes to a whole (or to a collection) based onthe fact that parts of that whole (or members of that collection) have those attributes.

Question 5

Division

Answer 5

An informal fallacy in which a mistaken inference is drawn from the attributes of a whole to the attributes of the parts of the whole.
-Unlike accident and converse accident, composition and division are fallacies of ambiguity, resulting from the multiple meanings of terms. Wherever the words or phrases used may mean one thing in one part of the argument and an-other thing in another part, and those different meanings are deliberately or accidentally confounded, we can expect the argument to be fallacious.