Sophism - what is it? Examples of sophistry

Sophism in translation from Greek means literally: trick, fiction or skill. This term is called a statement that is false, but not devoid of an element of logic, due to which, with a superficial glance at it, seems to be correct. The question arises: sophistry - what is it and how does it differ from paralogism? The difference is that sophisms are based on conscious and deliberate deception, violation of logic.

History of appearance

Sophisms and paradoxes were seen back in antiquity. One of the fathers of philosophy - Aristotle called this phenomenon imaginary evidence, which is due to a lack of logical analysis, which leads to the subjectivity of all judgments. The persuasiveness of arguments is just a disguise for a logical error, which in every sophistical affirmation is unquestionably.

Sophism - what is it? To answer this question, we need to consider an example of an ancient violation of logic: "You have what you did not lose. Did you lose the horns? So you have horns. " There is an omission here. If the first phrase is modified: "You have everything that you did not lose," then the conclusion becomes true, but rather uninteresting. One of the rules of the first Sophists was the assertion that the worst argument must be presented as the best, and the purpose of the dispute was only a victory in it, and not a search for truth.

The Sophists maintained that any opinion could be legitimate, thereby denying the law of contradiction later formulated by Aristotle. This gave rise to numerous kinds of sophistry in different sciences.

Sources of sophistry

Sources of sophistry can be the terminology that is used during the dispute. Many words have several meanings (a doctor can be a doctor or a research fellow with a degree), due to which there is a violation of logic. Sophisms in mathematics, for example, are based on changing numbers by multiplying them and then comparing the original and received data. Incorrect stress can also be a sophist weapon, because a lot of words change the meaning when changing the stress. The construction of the phrase is sometimes very confusing, as, for example, two multiply by two plus five. In this case, it is not clear whether the sum of two and five, multiplied by two, or the sum of the product of twos and five.

Complicated sophisms

If we consider more complex logical sophistries, then it is worthwhile to give an example with the inclusion in the phrase of the premise, which still needs to be proved. That is, the argument itself can not be such as long as it is not proven. Another violation is the criticism of the opponent's opinion, which is aimed at erroneously attributed to him the judgments. Such a mistake is widespread in everyday life, where people attribute to each other those opinions and motives that do not belong to them.

In addition, the phrase, spoken with some qualification, can be substituted for an expression that does not have such a reservation. Due to the fact that attention is not focused on the fact that was missed, the statement looks quite reasonable and logical. So-called female logic also refers to violations of the normal course of reasoning, since it represents the construction of a chain of thoughts that are not related to each other, but with a superficial examination, the connection can be detected.

The reasons for sophistry

For psychological reasons, sophisms include the human intellect, its emotionality and the degree of suggestibility. That is, it is enough for a more intelligent person to get his opponent into a dead end, so that he agrees with the point of view suggested to him. Affected by affective reactions a person can succumb to his feelings and miss sophistries. Examples of such situations are found everywhere where there are emotional people.

The more convincing a person's speech, the greater the chance that others will not notice mistakes in his words. This is what many of those who use such methods in dispute are counting on. But for a full understanding of these reasons, it is worth analyzing them in more detail, since sophisms and paradoxes in logic often pass by the attention of an unprepared person.

Intellectual and affective reasons

A developed intellectual personality has the opportunity to follow not only his speech, but also every argument of the interlocutor, while paying attention to the arguments cited by the interlocutor. This person is distinguished by a greater amount of attention, the ability to seek an answer to unknown questions instead of following the learned patterns, as well as a large active vocabulary, through which the thoughts are expressed most accurately.

The amount of knowledge is also of great importance. The skillful application of this kind of disturbances, like sophistry in mathematics, is inaccessible to an uneducated and not developing person.

These include fear of consequences, because of which a person is not able to confidently state his point of view and bring worthy arguments. Speaking about the emotional weaknesses of a person, we must not forget about the hope to find in any information received confirmation of their views on life. For the humanities mathematics sophistry can become a problem.

Volitional

During the discussion of points of view, there is an impact not only on the mind and feelings, but also on the will. A self-confident and assertive person with great success will maintain his point of view, even if it was formulated with a violation of logic. Especially strongly this method acts on large clusters of people, subject to the effect of the crowd and not noticing sophistry. What does this give the speaker? Possibility to convince almost anything. Another feature of the behavior that allows you to win in a dispute with sophistry is activity. The more passive a person is, the more likely he is to convince him that he is right.

Conclusion - the effectiveness of sophistical statements depends on the characteristics of both people involved in the conversation. In this case, the effects of all the personality traits considered are added and affect the outcome of the discussion of the problem.

Examples of logic violations

The sophisms, examples of which will be discussed below, have been formulated quite a long time and are simple violations of logic that are used only for training the ability to argue, since it is quite easy to see the inconsistencies in these phrases.

So, sophistries (examples):

Full and empty - if two halves are equal, then the two whole parts are also the same. In accordance with this - if half-empty and half-full is the same, then empty is equal to full.

Another example: "Do you know what I want to ask you?" - "No". - "And that virtue is a good quality of a person?" - "I know." "It turns out that you do not know what you know."

The medicine that helps the patient is good, and the more good, the better. That is, you can take as many medicines as possible.

Very famous sophistry says: "This dog has children, so she is the father. But since she is your dog, it means she is your father. In addition, if you hit a dog, then you beat your father. And still you are a brother of puppies. "

Logical paradoxes

Sophisms and paradoxes are two different concepts. A paradox is a proposition that can prove that a proposition is both false and true at the same time. This phenomenon is divided into 2 types: aporia and antinomy. The first implies the appearance of an output that is contrary to experience. An example is the paradox formulated by Zenon: the swift-footed Achilles is unable to catch up with the tortoise, since it will move away from it at each subsequent step, not allowing it to catch up with itself, because the process of dividing the segment of the path is endless.

Antinomy is a paradox, suggesting the existence of two mutually exclusive judgments that are both true. The phrase "I lie," can be both true and false, but if it's true, then the person who says it speaks the truth and is not considered a liar, although the phrase implies the opposite. There are interesting logical paradoxes and sophisms, some of which will be described below.

Logical paradox "Crocodile"

A resident of Egypt, a crocodile snatched a child, but, having compassion on a woman, after her plea, he put forward conditions: if she guesses whether he will return the child to her or not, he will accordingly give or will not give it back. After these words, her mother thought about it and said that he would not give her to her.

The crocodile responded to this: you will not get a child, because if the truth is true, I can not give you a child, because if I give it up, your words will no longer be true. And if it's not true - I can not return the child by agreement.

After that, the mother challenged his words, saying that in any case he must give her the child. The words were based on the following arguments: if the answer was true, then the crocodile should return the taken away, according to the contract, and otherwise it must also give the child, because the refusal will mean that the mother's words are just, and this again obliges the child to return.

Logical paradox "Missionary"

When he got to the cannibals, the missionary realized that he would soon be eaten, but he had the opportunity to choose whether they would cook it or fry it. The missionary had to deliver the statement, and if it turns out to be true, then it will be cooked in the first way, and the lie will lead to the second method. Having said the phrase, "you will fry me," the missionary thereby condemns the cannibals to an insoluble situation in which they can not decide what way to cook it. To fry his cannibals can not - in this case, he is right and they are obliged to weld a missionary. And if you are wrong - then fry, but this will not work, because then the words of the traveler will be true.

Violations of logic in mathematics

Usually mathematical sophisms prove the equality of unequal numbers or arithmetic expressions. One of the simplest samples is a comparison of the five and the unit. If you subtract 3 from 5, you get 2. When subtracting 3 from 1, -2 is obtained. When we put both numbers into squares, we get the same result. Thus, the primary sources of these operations are equal, s = 1.

Mathematical problems-sophisms are born more often due to the transformation of the initial numbers (for example - squaring). As a result, it turns out that the results of these transformations are equal, from which the conclusion is made about the equality of the original data.

Problems with broken logic

Why does the bar stay at rest when there is a weight of 1 kg on it? In this case, gravity acts on it, does it not contradict Newton's first law? The next task is thread tension. If you fix the flexible thread with one end, applying the force F to the second, the tension in each of its sections becomes F. But, since it consists of an infinite number of points, the force applied to the whole body will be equal to an infinitely large value. But according to experience, this can not be in principle. Mathematical sophistries, examples with and without answers can be found in the book under the authorship of A.G. And D.A. Madeira.

Action and reaction. If Newton's third law is valid, whatever force is applied to the body, the opposition will keep it in place and will not let it move.

A flat mirror changes the right and left sides of the object displayed in it, then why does the top and bottom do not change?

Sophisms in geometry

Inferences that are called geometric sophisms justify any wrong conclusion associated with actions on geometric figures or their analysis.

A typical example: a match is longer than a telegraph pole, and twice.

The length of the match will be a, the length of the column is b. The difference between these quantities is c. It turns out that b - a = c, b = a + c. If these expressions are multiplied, we get the following: b2 - ab = ca + c2. In this case, it is possible to subtract the component bc from both sides of the derived equality. The result is the following: b2 - ab - bc = ca + c2 - bc, or b (b - a - c) = - c (b - a - c). Where b = - c, but c = b - a, so b = a - b, or a = 2b. That is, the match is really twice as long as the pole. The error in these calculations is in the expression (b - a - c), which is zero. Such problems-sophistry usually confuse schoolchildren or people far from mathematics.

Philosophy

Sophism as a philosophical trend emerged around the second half of the fifth century BC. E. Followers of this trend were people who identified themselves as sages, since the term "sophist" meant "wise man." The first person who called himself that was Protagoras. He and his contemporaries, adhering to 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 applies to religious views.

Examples of sophistry in philosophy: the girl is not a man. Assuming that the girl is a man, it is true that she is a young man. But since a young man is not a girl, a girl is not a person. The most famous sophism, which also contains a share of humor, sounds like this: the more suicides, the less suicides.

Sophism of Evatla

A man named Evatl took sophistic lessons from the famous sage Protagoras. The conditions were as follows: if the student, after receiving the skills of the dispute, wins in the lawsuit, he will pay for the training, otherwise there will be no payment. The catch was that after the training the student simply did not participate in any process and, therefore, was not obliged to pay. Protagoras threatened to file a complaint with the court, saying that the student will pay in any case, the only question is whether it will be a court verdict or whether the student will win the case and will be obliged to pay for the training.

Evatl did not agree, arguing that if he was awarded for payment, then under the contract with Protagon, losing the case, he is not obliged to pay, but if he wins according to the court's sentence, he also does not owe the teacher money.

Sophism "verdict"

Examples of sophistry in philosophy are supplemented by a "verdict", which states that a certain person was sentenced to death, but reported on the same rule: execution will not happen immediately, but within a week, and the day of execution will not be announced in advance. Hearing this, the condemned man began to argue, trying to understand on what day there would be a terrible event for him. According to his reasons, if the execution does not happen until Sunday, on Saturday he will know that he is being executed tomorrow - that is, the rule he was told about has already been violated. Excluding Sunday, the condemned man thought the same way about Saturday, because if he knows that he will not be executed on Sunday, then on condition that no penalty occurs until Friday, Saturday is also excluded. After thinking over all this, he came to the conclusion that he could not be executed, as the rule would be violated. But on Wednesday he was surprised when the executioner appeared and did his terrible thing.

The Parable of the Railroad

An example of this type of logic disturbance, like economic sophisms, is the theory of the construction of a railway from one large city to another. A feature of this route was the break in a small station between two points that connected the road. This break, from an economic point of view, would help small cities by bringing in money for travelers. But on the way of two large cities there is not one settlement, that is, breaks in the railway, to maximize profit, there must be a lot. This means building a railway, which does not really exist.

Reason, obstacle

The sophisms, examples of which were considered by Frederic Bastiat, became very well known, and especially the violation of the logic of "cause, obstacle". Primitive man had practically nothing, and in order to get something, he had to overcome many obstacles. Even a simple example of overcoming distances shows that it will be very difficult for an individual to overcome on his own all the barriers that stand in the way of any single traveler. But in modern society people who are specialized in this occupation are engaged in solving problems of overcoming obstacles. Moreover, these obstacles have turned for them into a way of earning, that is, enrichment.

Each new obstacle created gives work to a multitude of people, from this it follows that the obstacles must be to make the society and every person individually enriched. So which conclusion is correct? Is the obstacle or its removal a blessing for humanity?

Arguments in the discussion

The arguments presented by people during the discussion are divided into objective and incorrect ones. The first are aimed at solving the problem situation and finding the right answer, while the latter are pursuing the goal of winning the dispute and nothing more.

The first kind of incorrect arguments can be considered as an argument to the identity of the person with whom the dispute is being waged, drawing attention to his personality traits, features of appearance, beliefs and so on. Thanks to this approach, a contending person acts on the interlocutor's emotions, thereby killing in him an intelligent beginning. There are also arguments for authority, strength, profit, vanity, fidelity, ignorance and common sense.

So, sophistry - what is this? A reception that helps in a dispute, or meaningless reasoning that does not give any answer and therefore does not have value? Both.