Sophism translated from Greek means literally: a ploy, fiction or skill. This term is called a statement that is false, but not without an element of logic, due to which, with a superficial look at it, it seems true. The question arises: sophism - what is it and how does it differ from paralogism? And the difference is that sophisms are based on conscious and deliberate deception, violation of logic.
History of the term
Sophisms and paradoxes were noticed in antiquity. One of the fathers of philosophy - Aristotle called this phenomenon imaginary evidence that appears due to a lack of logical analysis, which leads to the subjectivity of the whole judgment. The persuasiveness of the arguments is just a disguise for a logical error, which in every sophistic statement, no doubt, is.
Sophism - what is it? To answer this question, you need to consider an example of an ancient violation of logic: “You have what you have not lost. Lost the horns? So you have horns. " There is an omission here. If you modify the first sentence: “You have everything that you haven’t lost,” then the conclusion becomes correct, but rather uninteresting. One of the rules of the first sophists was the assertion that it was necessary to present the worst argument as the best, and the purpose of the dispute was only victory in it, and not the search for truth.
The Sophists argued that any opinion could be legal, thereby denying the law of contradiction, later formulated by Aristotle. This has given rise to numerous types of sophisms in various sciences.
Sources of sophism
The sources of sophism may be the terminology that is used during a dispute. Many words have several meanings (a doctor can be a doctor or a researcher with a degree), due to which there is a violation of logic. Sofisms in mathematics, for example, are based on a change in numbers by multiplying them and then comparing the initial and obtained data. Improper stress can also be a sophist's weapon, because many words change the meaning when the stress is changed. Building a phrase is sometimes very confusing, such as multiplying two by two plus five. In this case, it is not clear whether the sum of two and five times two, or the sum of the product of two and five, is meant.
Complex sophisms
If we consider more complex logical sophisms, then it is worth giving an example with the inclusion of a premise in the phrase that still needs to be proved. That is, the argument itself cannot be such until it is proved. Another violation is considered to be criticism of the opponent’s opinion, which is aimed at mistakenly attributed 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, a phrase said with some reservation may 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 logically correct. The so-called female logic also refers to violations of the normal course of reasoning, since it is a construction of a chain of thoughts that are not connected with each other, but with a superficial examination, a connection can be detected.
Reasons for sophism
The psychological causes of sophism include the human intellect, its emotionality, and the degree of suggestibility. That is, it is enough for a smarter person to lead his opponent into a dead end so that he agrees with his point of view. Subjected to affective reactions, a person can succumb to his feelings and miss sophisms. Examples of such situations are found wherever there are emotional people.
The more convincing a person’s speech is, the greater the chance that others will not notice errors in his words. Many of those who use such methods in a dispute count on this. But for a full understanding of these reasons, it is worthwhile to analyze 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 person has the ability to monitor not only his speech, but also every argument of the interlocutor, while paying attention to the arguments given by the interlocutor. Such a person is distinguished by a greater amount of attention, the ability to search for answers to unknown questions instead of following memorized patterns, as well as a large active vocabulary, through which thoughts are expressed most accurately.
The amount of knowledge is also important. The skillful application of this type of violation, such as sophism in mathematics, is inaccessible to an illiterate and non-developing person.
These include the fear of consequences, because of which a person is not able to confidently express his point of view and give worthy arguments. Speaking about the emotional weaknesses of a person, one should not forget about the hope of finding confirmation of one's views on life in any information received. For humanities, mathematical sophisms can become a problem.
Strong-willed
During the discussion of points of view, there is an impact not only on the mind and feelings, but also on the will. A confident and assertive person with great success defends his point of view, even if it was formulated in violation of logic. This technique is especially strong for large crowds of people who are subject to the effect of crowds and do not notice sophism. What does this give the speaker? The ability to convince almost anything. Another feature of behavior that allows you to win a dispute with sophism is activity. The more passive a person is, the greater the chance of convincing him of his innocence.
Conclusion - the effectiveness of sophistic expressions depends on the characteristics of both people involved in the conversation. Moreover, the effects of all the considered personality traits are added and affect the outcome of the discussion of the problem.
Logic Violation Examples
Sofisms, examples of which will be considered below, have been formulated for a long time and are simple violations of logic, used only to train the ability to argue, since it is quite easy to see inconsistencies in these phrases.
So, sophisms (examples):
Full and empty - if the two halves are equal, then the two integer parts are also the same. Accordingly, if half-empty and half-complete are 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 much medicine as possible.
A very famous sophism states: “This dog has children, which means it is a father. But since she is your dog, it means she is your father. Besides that, if you beat a dog, then you beat a father. You’re also 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. This phenomenon is divided into 2 types: aporia and antinomy. The first implies a conclusion that contradicts experience. An example is the paradox formulated by Zeno: the fast-footed Achilles is not able to catch up with the turtle, since at each subsequent step it will move away from it by a certain distance, preventing it from catching itself, because the process of dividing a segment of the path is endless.
Antinomy, on the other hand, is a paradox suggesting the presence of two mutually exclusive judgments that are simultaneously true. The phrase “I am lying” can be both truth and a lie, but if it is true, then the person who pronounces 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"
The crocodile snatched a child from an Egyptian woman, but taking pity on the woman, after her plea, he put forward the conditions: if she guesses whether he will return the child to her or not, he will, respectively, give it or not. After these words, the mother thought for a moment and said that he would not give her the child.
To this the crocodile replied: you won’t get the child, because in the case when what you said is true, I can’t give you the child, because if I give you, your words will no longer be true. And if this is not true, I cannot return the child by agreement.
Then the mother challenged his words, saying that in any case he should give her a child. The words were justified by the following arguments: if the answer was true, then under the agreement the crocodile had to return the taken away, otherwise he would also have to give the child back, because a refusal would mean that the mother’s words were fair, and this again obliges the baby to be returned.
The logical paradox of the “Missionary”
Having arrived at the cannibals, the missionary realized that he would be eaten soon, but at the same time he had the opportunity to choose whether they would cook him or fry him. The missionary had to make a statement, and if it turns out to be true, then it will be prepared in the first way, and a lie will lead to the second method. Having said the phrase, “you fry me,” the missionary thereby condemns the cannibals to an insoluble situation in which they cannot decide in what way to cook it. Cannibals cannot fry him - in this case he will be right and they are obliged to cook the missionary. And if it’s wrong, then fry it, but this will not work either, since then the traveler’s words will be true.
Violations of logic in mathematics
Usually mathematical sophisms prove the equality of unequal numbers or arithmetic expressions. One of the simplest examples is a comparison of five and one. If you subtract 3 from 5, you get 2. When you subtract 3 from 1, you get -2. When squaring both numbers into a square, we get the same result. Thus, the primary sources of these operations are equal, 5 = 1.
Mathematical problems-sophisms are born most often due to the transformation of the original numbers (for example, squaring). As a result, it turns out that the results of these transformations are equal, from which we conclude that the initial data are equal.
Broken Logic Tasks
Why does the bar remain at rest when it is standing on a weight of 1 kg? Indeed, in this case, gravity acts on it, does this not contradict Newton’s first law? The next task is thread tension. If you fix a flexible thread at one end, applying F to the second force, then the tension in each of its sections will become equal to F. But, since it consists of countless points, the force applied to the whole 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 a book authored by A.G. and D.A. Madeira.
Action and reaction. If Newton’s third law is valid, then no matter what force is applied to the body, the reaction will keep it in place and will not allow it to move.
A flat mirror swaps the right and left sides of the item displayed in it, then why don't the top and bottom change?
Sophisms in geometry
Inferences, called geometric sophisms, justify any incorrect 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 denoted by a, the length of the column by b. The difference between these values ​​is c. it turns out that b - a = c, b = a + c. If you multiply these expressions, you get the following: b2 - ab = ca + c2. Moreover, it is possible to subtract the component bc from both sides of the deduced equality. It turns out the following: b2 - ab - bc = ca + c2 - bc, or b (b - a - c) = - c (b - a - c). Whence b = - c, but c = b - a, therefore b = a - b, or a = 2b. That is, a match is really twice as long as a column. The error in these calculations lies in the expression (b - a - c), which is zero. Such sophism problems usually confuse schoolchildren or people who are far from mathematics.
Philosophy
Sophism as a philosophical trend arose around the second half of the 5th century BC. e. The followers of this trend were people who referred to themselves as sages, since the term "sophist" meant "sage." The first person to call himself that was Protagoras. He and his contemporaries, adhering to sophistic views, believed that everything was subjective. According to the ideas of the sophists, man is the measure of all things, and this 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 sophism in philosophy: a girl is not a man. If we assume that the girl is a man, then the statement that she is a young man is true. But since a young man is not a girl, a girl is not a man. The most famous sophism, which also contains a share of humor, sounds like this: the more suicides, the less suicides.
Sophism Evatla
A man named Evatl took sophistry lessons from the famous sage Protagoras. The conditions were as follows: if the student after gaining the skills of the dispute wins the lawsuit, he will pay for the training, otherwise there will be no payment. The catch was that after 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 required to pay for the training.
Evatl did not agree, justifying that if he was awarded for payment, then under an agreement with Protagoras, losing the case, he was not obliged to pay, but if he won according to a court sentence, he also did not owe money to the teacher.
Sophism "sentence"
Examples of sophistry in philosophy are supplemented by a “sentence”, which states that a certain person was sentenced to death, but informed of one 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 reason, trying to understand what day a terrible event would happen to him. According to his considerations, if the execution does not happen until Sunday, then already on Saturday he will know that he will be executed tomorrow - that is, the rule that he was told about is already violated. Excluding Sunday, the condemned thought the same way about Saturday, because if he knows that he will not be executed on Sunday, then, provided that no execution takes place before Friday, Saturday is also excluded. After thinking about all this, he came to the conclusion that they could not execute him, as the rule would be violated. But on Wednesday he was surprised when the executioner appeared and did his terrible job.
The parable of the railway
An example of this type of violation of logic, such as economic sophisms, is the theory of the construction of a railway from one large city to another. A feature of this path was the gap at a small station between the two points that the road connected. This gap, from an economic point of view, would help small cities by bringing in money for people traveling. But there are more than one settlement on the path of two large cities, that is, there should be many gaps in the railway to maximize profits. This means building a railroad that does not actually exist.
Reason, obstacle
The sophisms, examples of which were examined by Frederic Bastia, became very famous, and especially the violation of the logic “cause, obstacle”. The primitive man had practically nothing and in order to get something, he had to overcome many obstacles. Even a simple example of overcoming the distance shows that it will be very difficult for an individual to overcome all the barriers that stand in the way of any single traveler. But in modern society, specialized in such an occupation people deal with the problems of overcoming obstacles. Moreover, these obstacles turned for them into a way of earning, that is, enrichment.
Each new obstacle created gives work to many people, it follows that there must be obstacles so that society and each person individually enriched. So what is the correct conclusion? Is obstruction or its elimination a boon to humanity?
Arguments in discussion
The arguments made by people during the discussion are divided into objective and incorrect. The former are aimed at resolving the problem situation and finding the right answer, while the latter are aimed at winning the dispute 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 held, paying attention to his character traits, especially his appearance, beliefs, etc. Thanks to this approach, the arguing person affects the emotions of the interlocutor, thereby killing a reasonable start in him. There are also arguments for authority, strength, gain, vanity, fidelity, ignorance and common sense.
So sophism - what is it? Reception, helping in the dispute, or meaningless reasoning, which do not give any answer and therefore have no value? Both.