The word "sophism" is considered polysemantic. In a general sense, it refers to reasoning that at first glance appears to be true, but in fact contains a logical error. In some way, this is an attempt to mislead another person by presenting a lie as the truth.
One of the most striking examples of sophism known to everyone is called “Horned”. It goes like this: “What you have not lost, you have; You haven’t lost your horns, that means you have horns.” As can be seen from the above statement, sophistry is based on a deliberate and special violation of any rule of logic. This is precisely what distinguishes it from other errors: paralogism or aporia. In them, if a violation occurs, it happens unintentionally.
History of the term
Sophistry began to interest people many centuries ago. Aristotle also spoke about this: sophistry is an imaginary proof that appears due to a lack of logical analysis, because of which the judgment acquires a subjective character. Convincing arguments are used for camouflage purposes and are designed to hide the logical error that is always present in any sophistic statement.
Understanding what sophistry is is not so difficult. It is enough to turn to the example of an ancient violation of logic: “You have what you did not lose. Lost antlers? So you have horns." In this case there is an omission. If you add a new word to the phrase, you can get the following: “You have everything that you did not lose.” With this interpretation, the conclusion becomes correct, but it no longer seems interesting. The first followers of sophistry said that a statement must satisfy the main requirement - the worst argument must turn into the best, and an argument is needed in order to win it, and not to find the truth.
According to the sophists, any opinion can be considered true, but then the law of contradiction , which Aristotle later formulated, is negated. All this subsequently led to the emergence of many varieties of sophisms in different sciences.
Intellectual and affective reasons
A developed intellectual person has the ability to monitor not only his own speech, but also every argument of his interlocutor, while paying attention to the arguments given by the interlocutor. Such a person is distinguished by a greater attention span, the ability to seek answers to unknown questions instead of following memorized patterns, as well as a large active vocabulary, with the help of which thoughts are expressed most accurately.
The amount of knowledge is also important. The skillful use of this type of violation, such as sophistry in mathematics, is inaccessible to an illiterate and non-developing person.
These include fear of consequences, due to which a person is not able to confidently express his point of view and present worthy arguments. When talking about a person’s emotional weaknesses, we must not forget about the hope of finding confirmation of one’s views on life in any information received. For a humanist, mathematical sophisms can become a problem.
Sources of sophistry
Many sophisms originate from the terminology that is used during an argument. There are many words that have different interpretations. This is precisely what leads to a violation of logic. For example, in mathematics, sophisms are constructed by changing numbers, which are multiplied, and then the original and obtained data are compared.
incorrect stress as a technique , because there are many words that lose their original meaning when the stress changes. Sometimes there are such confusing phrases that can cause ambiguous interpretations. A striking example of this can be the following arithmetic operation: two multiplied by two plus five. It is difficult to say what is most important in this phrase - the sum of two and five multiplied by two, or the sum of the product of two and five.
Arguments in the discussion
The arguments people give during discussions are divided into objective and incorrect. The former are aimed at resolving a problem situation and finding the correct answer, while the latter pursue the goal of winning the argument and nothing more.
The first type of incorrect arguments can be considered an argument to the personality of the person with whom the dispute is being waged, drawing attention to his character traits, appearance, beliefs, etc. Thanks to this approach, the arguing person influences the emotions of the interlocutor, thereby killing the rational principle in him. There are also arguments to authority, power, profit, vanity, loyalty, ignorance and common sense.
So, sophistry - what is it? A technique that helps in a dispute, or meaningless reasoning that does not give any answer and therefore has no value? Both.
Complex sophisms
There are also more complex logical sophisms that require detailed consideration. For example, a phrase may contain a premise that requires proof. In other words, an argument can only be considered as such when it is proven. Also a violation may be criticism of an opponent’s opinion , designed to destroy judgments erroneously attributed to him. Each of us very often encounters this phenomenon in everyday life, when people attribute to each other certain motives that do not belong to them.
Also, instead of a phrase said with a certain reservation, an expression in which such a reservation is absent can be used. Since attention is not focused on a specially omitted fact, the statement takes on a rather logically correct and justified appearance.
A striking example of a violation of the normal course of reasoning is women's logic. In fact, this is the construction of a chain of thoughts between which there is no logical connection, but upon superficial examination it may be present.
Philosophy
Sophistry as a philosophical movement arose around the second half of the 5th century BC. e. The followers of this movement were people who considered themselves sages, since the term “sophist” meant “sage.” The first person to call himself this was Protagoras. He and his contemporaries, who held sophistic views, believed that everything is subjective. According to the ideas of the sophists, man is the measure of all things, which means that any opinion is true and no point of view can be considered scientific or correct. This also applied to religious views.
Examples of sophisms in philosophy: a girl is not a person. If we assume that the girl is a person, then the statement that she is a young man is true. But since the young man is not a girl, the girl is not a person. The most famous sophism, which also contains a bit of humor, sounds like this: the more suicides, the fewer suicides.
Reasons for sophistry
It is customary to highlight the psychological causes of sophisms, among which the most common are:
- degree of suggestibility;
- emotionality;
- human intelligence.
In other words, if a more savvy person is participating in the conversation, then he only has to lead his opponent into a dead end, and then the latter will easily accept the point of view proposed to him. A person who is unstable to affective reactions easily succumbs to his feelings and takes sophistry for a true statement. Situations like this are very common, and emotional people often find themselves in them.
When speaking to others with sophistry, a person must be convincing. Then he will have a better chance that people will believe him . This is exactly what the bet is on when people use such techniques in an argument. But in order to better understand why people resort to this technique, it is necessary to become more familiar with it, because often sophistry in logic very often goes unnoticed by an unprepared person.
Intellectual and affective reasons
A well-versed person, familiar with the basics of sophistry, always pays attention to how and what he says, and also notices all the arguments the interlocutor makes in his speech. Such people are very attentive and will not miss a single detail. They are accustomed to looking for answers to unknown questions, rather than acting according to templates. In addition to this, they have a large vocabulary, which allows them to express their thoughts as accurately .
The amount of knowledge also plays an important role here. With the correct use of sophisms in mathematics, it is easier for an intellectually developed person to achieve victory in an argument than for an illiterate and undeveloped person.
One of the reasons for losing an argument may be fear of consequences, so a person may very quickly abandon his original point of view, being unable to provide convincing arguments.
Strong-willed
When two people discuss their points of view, they affect each other's mind and feelings, as well as the will. If a person is confident in himself and has such a valuable quality as assertiveness, then he has a greater chance of defending his opinion , even if it was formulated in violation of logic. It is most effective to use this technique against large crowds of people who are susceptible to the crowd effect and are unable to see sophistry in a person’s speeches.
When faced with such people, a person will have no difficulty in presenting convincing evidence, regardless of what is the subject of discussion. But during an argument in which a person uses sophistry, he must be very active. The audience he addresses must remain passive, since such people are most easily influenced by others.
From this we can conclude: in order to achieve the desired result with the help of sophistic statements, each party that participates in the conversation must behave in a special way. Moreover, the qualities of each individual individually influence the outcome of the subject under discussion.
Famous sophists and their sophisms
Protagoras
The first who called himself a sophist and publicly acted as a teacher of virtue was, according to Plato, Protagoras. Only a few fragments of his works have survived. The most significant of the passages was his documented dispute with Euathlus. This debate is considered one of the first sophisms, which I personally really like:
Euathlus was a student of Protagoras. According to the agreement concluded between them, Evatl had to pay for training only if he won his first trial. But, having completed his studies, he did not participate in the processes, it lasted quite a long time, the teacher’s patience ran out, and he sued his student. Protagoras justified his demand as follows: “Whatever the court’s decision, Euathlus will have to pay me.” He will either win this lawsuit or lose. If he wins, he will pay according to our agreement. If he loses, then the court decision will be in my favor, and I will have to pay according to this decision. Apparently, Euathlus was a capable student, since he replied to Protagoras: “Indeed, I will either win the trial or lose it.” If I win, the court's decision will release me from the obligation to pay. If the court's decision is not in my favor, it means I lost my first case and will not pay due to our agreement.
Gorgias was one of the first orators of a new type - not only a practitioner, but also a theorist of eloquence, who taught young men from wealthy families to speak and think logically for a fee. Such teachers were called “experts in wisdom,” that is, sophists.
Gorgias claimed that he did not teach virtue and wisdom, but only oratory. Going off topic, he has some great advice for arguing:
Refute your opponent’s serious arguments with a joke, and jokes with seriousness.
Also among the sophists are Hippias, Critias, Antiphon and many other Hellenes.
Sophisms: examples
Many centuries ago, the first adherents of sophistry formulated a statement that showed simple violations of logic . They are designed to practice arguing skills, since it is very easy to see the inconsistency in these phrases.
- Full and empty. Since the halves are equal, then their whole parts will be equal. According to this statement, if half-empty and full are identical, we can conclude that empty will also correspond to full.
- A fairly well-known example is: “Do you know what I want to ask you? - No. — What about the fact that virtue is a good quality of a person? - I know. “It turns out that you don’t know what you know.”
- Giving medicine to a sick person means doing good. And the more one person brings good to another, the better for both of them. In other words, sick people need to be given as much medicine as possible.
- There is another sophism that many have probably heard of: a dog has children, and therefore he is their father. But since she is your dog, then, therefore, she is your father. When you hit your dog, it means you hit your father. And then the puppies are your brothers.
Reviews and comments
If you know other interesting sophisms and paradoxes, you can write about them below.
We also recommend reading:
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Key words:1Rhetoric
Logical paradoxes
You should be able to distinguish between paradoxes and sophisms, because these are not identical concepts to each other. A paradox is usually understood as a judgment that can prove that a judgment can be both false and true . This phenomenon comes in two types:
- aporia;
- antinomy.
In the first case, a conclusion arises that contradicts experience. This clearly demonstrates the paradox that was formulated by Zeno: the fleet-footed Achilles always lagged behind the tortoise, since with each new step it moved away from him by a certain distance, not allowing him to catch up with himself, since the process of dividing a segment of the path is endless.
Antinomy should be viewed as a paradox, which implies the presence of two mutually exclusive propositions that are simultaneously considered true. An example of this is the phrase “I’m lying.” It can be considered both true and false. But if a person speaks the truth while pronouncing it, then he cannot be considered a liar, although the phrase indicates the opposite. There are other interesting logical paradoxes and sophisms that will be discussed below.
Problems with broken logic
Why does the block remain at rest when a 1 kg weight is placed on it? After all, in this case the force of gravity acts on it, doesn’t this contradict Newton’s first law? The next task is thread tension. If you fasten a flexible thread at one end, applying a force F to the second, then the tension in each section will become equal to F. But, since it consists of an infinite number of points, the force applied to the entire body will be equal to an infinitely large value. But according to experience, this cannot be in principle. Mathematical sophisms, examples with and without answers can be found in the book authored by A.G. and D.A. Madeira.
Action and reaction. If Newton's third law is true, then no matter what force is applied to the body, the reaction will hold it in place and prevent it from moving.
A plane mirror swaps the right and left sides of the object it displays, then why don't the top and bottom change?
Violation of logic in mathematics
Most often in mathematics, sophisms are used to prove the equality of unequal numbers or arithmetic expressions. A striking example is when five and one are compared. If you subtract three from five, the result is two. Subtracting one from three, we get two. If you square both numbers, the result will be the same in each case. Therefore, we can conclude that five is equal to one.
The appearance of sophistic problems in mathematics mainly occurs due to the transformation of original numbers . For example, when they are squared. After performing these simple steps, you can obtain that the results of these transformations will be the same, which allows us to talk about the equality of the original data.
Reason, obstacle
Frédéric Bastiat is the author of some of the most widespread sophisms. Among them, the violation of the logic “reason, obstacle” is quite well known. Primitive man was very limited in his capabilities. Therefore, in order to obtain any thing and result, he had to solve many problems.
If we consider a simple example of overcoming a distance, we can see from it that it is difficult for a person to independently overcome all the barriers that may arise on the path of any single traveler. We live in one where the problem of overcoming obstacles is dealt with by people who specialize in this type of activity. And these people managed to make such obstacles one of their main sources of income.
The appearance of any new obstacle puzzles many people who are trying to overcome them. Therefore, the presence of obstacles is unthinkable for modern society, because they provide the opportunity to enrich each person individually, and, therefore, the entire society as a whole.
Parable about the railway
An example of this type of violation of logic, such as economic sophisms, is the theory of building a railway from one large city to another. A special feature of this route was the gap at a small station between two points that were connected by the road. This gap, from an economic point of view, would help small towns by bringing in money from people passing through. But there is more than one settlement on the route of two large cities, that is, there must be many gaps in the railway to extract maximum profit. This means building a railroad that doesn't actually exist.
