1. Current definition

The ad consequentiam argument scheme is currently defined as follows:

(1) Appeal to consequences, also known as argumentum ad consequentiam (Latin for « argument to the consequence »), is an argument that concludes a hypothesis (typically a belief) to be either true or false based on whether the premise leads to desirable or undesirable consequences. (Wikipedia, Appeal to consequences).
God must exist: if he does not exist, then very many people pray for nothing!
(Wikipedia, Argumentum ad consequentiam, in French)

Walton (1999) traces the “Historical Origins of Argument Ad Consequentiam”.

2. Different meanings of ad consequentiam

The Latin word consequentia means:

1. 1. “What comes after” in space or in time.
   2. The logical consequence: per consequentias, “it follows that” (Gaffiot, Consequentia)
      Lat. ex quo natura consequi ut… “from which it is a natural consequence that” [1]

In the first meaning, an argument ad consequentiam refers to something that happened after a central event. For example, a large sum of money was stolen from Paul. The investigator notes that after the date of the robbery, James, an acquaintance of Paul’s, spent large sums of money, while nothing changed in his income. The investigator uses  an argument based upon « what happened after (the theft) » to charge James with the theft, S. Circumstances.

In the second meaning, an argument ad consequentiam is an argument based on causal or logical consequences. With this meaning, the label ad consequentiam covers all the range of appeals to consequences (effect-to-cause arguments), be they positive or negative:
— The pragmatic argument appealing to positive consequences is an ad consequentiam argument.
— In the same way, appeals to absurdity are a form of refutative appeal to consequences deemed absurd a) from a logical point of view (they lead to a contradiction), or b) undesirable from a psychological or moral point of view, or c) contrary to the pragmatic interests and values of the speaker.

So, one may fear that definition (1) misleadingly reduces the various effect/consequence to cause arguments to what can more conveniently be called pathetic argumentation, if we are to judge by the example.

[1] « Again, [the Stoics] hold that the universe is governed by divine will; it is a city or state of which both men and gods are members, and each one of us is a part of this universe; from which it is a natural consequence that = ex quo natura consequi ut we should prefer the common advantage to our own. 
(Cicero, De Finibus, Bk 3) https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cicero/de_Finibus/home.html]

Lat. “tu quoque!”; tu “you”, quoque “too”

In Latin and in English, the “you too” argument scheme is named after the statement that typically realizes the argument.
In the general case the reply:

S1:   — I do A because X does so.

is a strategy of legitimation by imitation. The fact that X makes A creates a precedent^@ legitimizing A, and if S1 considers X as a model, it gives A a second form of legitimacy. Such legitimations are part of the “You too!” argumentation; its scenario is as follows:

S1 performs such action A.
S2 blames him
S1 replies: “But you do it too! You do the same!”

S2 criticizes S1 for an action that he presents as blameworthy. S1 can reply in a variety of ways:

(i) He can first answer to S2 that others do the same: since Landru (a popular French serial killer) murdered his mistresses, why couldn’t I? The degree of legitimation depends on the severity of the transgression and the number of transgressors. I run a red light in the open country, when there is no traffic and the visibility is perfect, and I feel justified in saying “well, this is forbidden, but everyone does it, the guy ahead went through, I just followed him”.

(ii) In the case where the wrongdoer is not another third party but S2, S1 has two possibilities:

— As in the previous case, S1 can quietly legitimize his or her action by the (bad) example given by S2.

— S1 can also reply using a counter-accusation, which seeks to put S2 in the face of the contradiction between what he preaches and what he does, S. Ad hominem. S1 acknowledges his or her misbehavior, but considers that, due to his or her own misbehavior, S2 is in no position to teach him or her a lesson. In terms of stasis, the defendant does not recognize the legitimacy of the judge, S. Stasis:

S1: — It suits you well to blame me! Please, not you! I have no moral lessons to receive from you.

“Two wrongs don’t make a right”

The phrase “two wrongs don’t make a right” can be understood in two different ways.

— First, as “one does not fight evil with evil”, that is, “evil must be fought by legal means”, a very important principle; many would be tempted to add the clause “as far as possible”. In other words, the good end — the struggle against evil — should not be pursued by evil means; such as torturing the former torturer to stop torture. This would amount to a case of autophagy.
This principle is invoked to reject the justification of a mistreatment made to somebody by arguing, in a sort of anticipatory law of retaliation, that, had he been in our place, this is what he would have done to us, S. Reciprocity (after FF, Two wrong).
— Secondly, it can express the rule that “bad behavior does not become legitimate because widespread”; many wrongs never make a right. The common transgression (argument from number) never creates an against-the-law legitimacy, S. Consensus.

In practical life, thanks to a minor miracle, an error sometimes compensates for another. This also seems to occur in science:

Kepler knows that Tycho Brahe [obtained] the best possible accuracy on the measurements of the positions of the planets (including the planet Mars), and this accuracy was of two minutes of degree. With the mathematical model of a circular orbit on the Mars planet that he (Kepler) used, Kepler noticed discrepancies of eight minutes of degree between the positions observed by Tycho Brahe and the calculated positions. Trusting the precision of Tycho Brahe’s measurements, Kepler renounces the circular orbit of Mars. He revises the orbit of the Earth and, thanks to two compensating errors, discovers his first law: “In the motion of a planet, the vector ray sweeps equal areas in equal times.”
Edgar Soulié, [Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), the Protestant astronomer who discovered the laws of motion of the planets], (no date).[1]

[1] Edgar Soulié, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) L’astronome protestant qui a découvert la loi du mouvement des planètes. http://www.astrosurf.com/rtaa/rtaa2016/documents/kepler-edgar-soulie.pdf (01-09-2017).

1. The scheme

The argument from waste is defined as follows by Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca:

The argument of waste consists in saying that, as one has already begun a task and made sacrifices, which would be wasted if the enterprise were given up, one should continue in the same direction. This is the justification given by the banker who continues to lend to his insolvent debtor in the hope of getting him on his feet again in the long run. This is one of the reasons which, according to Saint Theresa, prompt a person to pray, even in a period of “dryness.” One would give up, she says, if it were not

‘… that one remembers that it gives delight and pleasure to the Lord of the garden, that one is careful not to throw away all the service rendered, and that one remembers the benefit one hopes to derive from the great effort of dipping the pail often into the well and drawing it up empty’. (1958], p. 279)

According to the tradition established by Aristotle in the Rhetoric, the Treatise introduces the scheme of waste by a definition immediately followed by two illustrations. The defining topos is given in the following passage:

as one has already begun a task and made sacrifices, which would be wasted if the enterprise were given up, one should continue in the same direction.

The topos is given as a generic sentence, outlining a typified situation. The agents are impersonal (“one”); “(one has) already begun” / “should continue”; “a task”, an “enterprise”; “(one has made) sacrifices.

The topos corresponds to the following script (the elements of the affective scenario are underlined):

(i) A complex initial situation:

(a) A task has been started in the hope of a significant benefice.
(b) The task is long and difficult: sacrifices have been made.
(c) Nothing has been obtained (implicit).

(ii) These hard conditions generate an interrogation:

(d) Implicit: despair looms; it is possible and one is tempted to stop: “should I continue?” This key point is not explicitly mentioned in the scheme.
(e) The situation is now radicalized, as a risk of losing everything:

— Either (e1) I “give up” and all the efforts will be wasted.
— Or (e2), I go on, “hoping” that things will finally turn better.

This key element, hope, is not mentioned in the scheme, it only appears in the first example.

(e2) can be derived from (e1) by application of the opposite scheme:

 give up and waste everything
continue and not to lose, or even to win (implicit).

(iii) Conclusion: A decision, actually a bet: “one should continue in the same direction”.

All these conditions are crucial, for example (e). If it was a cumulative task (like weight training), then one could justify the decision to stop by saying that, well, “it is something anyway”.

*

The scheme is structured by a concatenation of emotions:

hope → temptation of despair → renewed hope

2. Related forms

The scheme of waste is related to the proverbial scheme, “one does not stop in mid-stream”, to which one can reply “either you stop or you drown yourself”. It is vulnerable to a counter-discourse such as, “we have already lost enough time like that.”

Slippery Slope

The scheme of waste ratifies the slippery slope argument, “we must not begin, because, if we start, we will not be able to stop”. This last scheme justifies an initial abstention, whereas the argument of waste is that of perseverance in action, S. Direction.

Sunk cost fallacy

The sunk cost argument is discussed in Walton 2002, Walton & al. 2008, p. 326-327. Economic theory distinguishes between sunk costs (retrospective costs), which have already been incurred and are therefore irrecoverable, and forecast costs (future costs). This theory states that, in decision-making, only theforecast costs should be taken into account. It follows that taking into account past costs and sacrifices already made is irrational and fallacious (Wikipedia, Sunk cost).
The banker must know how to evaluate the situation of his debtor at any moment and then, according to this evaluation alone, without taking into account past costs, take his losses, as he knows how to take his profits.

3. Examples

The following example introduces a formula frequently associated with this scheme when used to justify the continuation of a war “then they would have died for nothing!”:

“Beating a retreat is tantamount to recognizing that all our guys died for nothing!” claims [John McCain’s ⁽¹⁾ fan] Private Carl Bromberg, having returned home.
 ⁽¹⁾ Republican Presidential nominee for the 2008 United States presidential election.
Marianne, 1-10 March 2008, p. 59.

The key elements of the scheme can be scattered across the passage (our emphasis):

He [the philosopher Alain] does not believe in the war in the name of law. From the end of 1914 on, he favors a peace of compromise, and he follows very closely, through the Tribune de Genève ⁽¹⁾ sent to him by the household Halévy, everything which looks like the beginning of a negotiation, however fragile. But he is under no illusion: precisely because it is so hideous, so murderous, so blind, so total, war is very difficult to stop. It does not belong to this category of armed conflicts that cynical princes can stop if they consider that the costs exceeds the possible gains, and that the game is not worth the candle. It is led by patriots, honest men elected by their people, who are locked up every day more and more in the aftermath of the decisions of July 1914⁽²⁾. The sufferings have been so great, the deaths so numerous that no one dares to act as if they had not been necessary. And how do we move forward without being labeled as a traitor? The longer the war lasts, the longer it will last. It kills democracy, from which it nevertheless receives what perpetuates its course.
⁽¹⁾ A Swiss newspaper ⁽²⁾ Date of the declaration of war.
François Furet, [The Past of an Illusion], 1995[1].

Leaders of democracies may be using the sunk cost argument when they decide to continue the war, despite heavy losses, thinking they had a good chance of winning.

*

On the method of identifying a topos in a passage, see Argument scheme, which uses the waste argument as an example.

[1] François Furet, Le Passé d’une illusion. Essai sur l’idée communiste au XXe siècle. Paris: Robert Laffont & Calmann-Levy, 1995, p. 65. [The Past of an Illusion. Essay on the communist idea in the twentieth century]

The word norm has two main meanings.

1. The statisticians’ norm, the average

In France, the average age of / for first sexual intercourse is 16.8 years. 27% of young people are sexually active before 16. In a lifetime, the French have, on average, 16.7 partners. Only 10% will be satisfied with the same one all their lives. on average, our contemporaries perform 121 somersaults per year. « 

Source: [http://www.uniondesfamilles.org/sexualite_ en_chiffres.htm] (20-09- 2013)

2. The norm as imperative

Its description involves the injunction of an obligation, which is expressed by a rule whose content belongs to / falls within the particular institution or domain concerned, for example:

Moral and legal domain: Thou shalt not kill

Ordinary civility: Thou shalt respond when spoken to

Proper use of language: Thou shalt not say « I is », thou shalt say « I am »

Rational behavior: Thou shalt not use ambiguous statements; thy tongue shall not be forked

Road driving: Thou shalt remain in control of thy vehicle.

3. Norms in argumentation

The different theories of argumentation have very different relationships with norms; only some express them in the form of rules.

Generalized theories of argumentation

The generalized theories of argumentation, such as the theory of argumentation in language or natural logic, have no relation with norms of morality, truth or rationality. When the theory of argumentation in language speaks of norms, it is about linguistic norms, which are expressed in terms of acceptability or non-acceptability of the statements and of the sequences of statements. The rules considered are the structural forms of language.

Rhetoric as an ars bene dicendi

Argumentative rhetoric as an ars bene dicendi, defines rhetoric as form, “art of speaking well”, and as content “art of saying what is morally good”.

The speech does not have an autonomous standard, its norms are externalized as a moral of discourse, combine with a art of speaking in agreement with the rules of good taste,

Both are diffuse norms, adaptable to the tastes of the time, which would be difficult to transpose into a set of rules.

New Rhetoric

The New Rhetoric takes as a norm the quality of the audience, in particular the universal audience, S. Persuade and convince

The norm is not provided by a system of rules but by an ideal instance, the universal audience.

Classical logic

As a natural form of argumentation, classical logic uses as a norm the rules of the syllogism, S. Syllogistic paralogisms.

Pragma-dialectic

The Pragma-dialectics proposes a system of normative rules, S. Rules; Evaluations and evaluators.

1. A word as a hologram of the argument

Holography is a technique that provides a two-dimensional representation of three-dimensional phenomena. In metaphorical sense, a word can function as the hologram of a whole argumentation (actually a set of co-oriented speeches) and mirror the totality of the argumentative discourse it is part of. The line of discourse is condensed into one of its points, that being the word. Such hologrammatic words are termed oriented (in the Argumentation within Language theory) or biased (in standard Fallacy theory).

Argumentations containing oriented words are considered to be fallacious and sophistical insofar as they actually presuppose the conclusions they apparently construct. The conclusion is embedded in the wording of the argument, and the reasoning is trapped in a vicious circle. Metaphorically, one may say that the target (the conclusion) is tailored to the measure of the arrow (the argument); the arrow cannot miss the target, and is therefore irrelevant.

This is true if an argumentation is considered to be a self-sufficient piece of reasoning, contained in an autonomous discursive episode. If argumentation is seen as an on-going process, however, the orientation of words testifies to the fact that the argumentative discourse not only constructs its conclusion on the spot, but also recalls that this conclusion has been previously established. Oriented words refer to the whole script corresponding to the arguer’s discourse; they are the memory of argumentation, and the clearest example of objects of discourse. The word biased has a negative orientation (“prejudiced; to be avoided”) while orientation, oriented can have a neutral-positive orientation (“taking bearings”), while admitting, if need be, a negative orientation (“biased”).

The global issue is that of the argument orientation and the persuasive definition. The first case involves language data and the second speech activity, in the first case the discourse is biased per se, in the second case it is made biased by the participant.

2. Designations as issues

Let us consider the pro-life vs. free choice debate. If a participant speaks of babies and the other of fetuses, we already know that the former is most probably pro-life and the latter pro-free-choice. The antagonistic words are “loaded” with the antagonistic conclusion towards which they are oriented. Baby refers to a human person, and implies that we must feel for this being all the value-loaded emotions we feel for young children, and treat him or her accordingly. Fetus puts these attitudes between parentheses, and technically refers to a “product of the conception of vertebrates during prenatal development, after the embryonic stage, when it begins to form and to present the distinctive characteristics of the species.” (TLFi, Fetus). A word might be value-loaded in a discourse and not in another. In the developmental discourse of medicine, for example, fetus opposes to embryo and is a non-controversial technical designation, as is baby when referring to a pre-toddler child.
The idea of human selection is generally repulsive. The search for a positive designation for babies which have been genetically selected in order to treat his or her sick brother or sister, continues. Candidate terms include, designer baby, medicine baby, savior baby, doctor baby….

A similar debate is also reflected in the designation for products used as crop treatments, and suspected to be carcinogenic. The terms agro-pharmaceutical product or phyto-sanitary product sound highly chemical, and the latter has even been appropriated by a French association “Phyto-Victims”. Pesticide has also a negative orientation, despite its etymological meaning, “pests killer” (as if the negation of a negation was interpreted as an hyper-negation). The terminological fight continues, and the industry has turned to plant protection product and crop protection product.

The orientation of ordinary words strongly differentiates natural language and logical languages. Biased language can be considered an obstacle to the objective treatment of the issue, and has thus been banned from argumentative discourse as an instrument of monological rationality. The problem is how to agree upon the purification principle, as it could significantly affect most of out common vocabulary.

Categorization operations are not too problematic for plants, animals and other natural species. Things are more complicated when it comes to beings and situations whose designations cannot be agreed upon before the debate, but is actually the very issue at stake.

In the debate about abortion for example, the discussion of the correct designation, fetus or baby, cannot be dissociated from the discussion on the merits and disadvantages of abortion itself.

In practice, the persuadee must assent not only to a position, but also to the corresponding expression, S. Persuasion. It is not possible to remediate biased language by a conventionalism, consisting in agreeing on the meaning of the words before the debate in which they are to be used, refraining from using loaded terms, or creating neutral terms. The discussion of the nature of the object is not separable from the discussion of its name. The fact of being at the heart of a debate results in duplication of the designation of the object. Its objective designation and “real name” will eventually be attributed to it at the end of the debate; objectivity is not a condition but a product of the debate.

The search for “neutral” terms shows, on the one hand, the desire to put ordinary language between parentheses when it comes to serious issues, insofar as it does not correspond to a pure referential and inferential ideals, and, on the other hand, the wish to consider that the debate between rational beings consists only in clarifying semantic misunderstandings, which are the consequence of the defects of natural language. The task of argumentation would be relatively simple if we could assume that some data are accepted as such by both parties; this is true only for peaceful neutral facts, external to the heart of the debate. In the other case, the division of discourses is openly exposed by the use of so-called biased, loaded or oriented designations. The designation is already argumentative, S. Schematization. Agreeing on the designation of facts is a matter of identity, focus, emotional empathy. As there is a conversion to new beliefs, there is a conversion to new facts and words.

1. The mistake about camels in the Koran is traditional and I probably borrowed it from Borges:

A few days ago, I discovered a curious confirmation of the way in which what is truly native can and often does dispense with local color; I found this confirmation in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon observes that in the Arab book par excellence, the Koran, there are no camels; I believe that if there ever were any doubt as to the authenticity of the Koran, this lack of camels would suffice to prove that it is Arab. It was written by Mohammed, and Mohammed, as an Arab, had no reason to know that camels were particularly Arab; they were, for him, a part of reality, and he had no reason to single them out, while the first thing a forger, a tourist, or an Arab nationalist would do is bring on the camels, whole caravans of camels on every page; but Mohammed, as an Arab, was unconcerned; he knew he could be Arab without camels. I believe that we Argentines can be like Mohammed; we can believe in the possibility of being Argentine without abounding in local color.

Jorge Luis Borges, The Argentine Writer and Tradition (1951) (my emphasis)
Quoted from https://arabist.net/blog/2006/6/30/borges.html (10-29-2021

Borges is a writer, not a historian. Borges’ Gibbon is a “fiction”, which should not be mistaken for the historical Gibbon.

As the context makes clear,Borges uses the case of camels and the Koran as a resource domain for an analogy about the local color and the Argentine literature, an Argentina without gauchos is paralleled with a Koran without camels (certainly in relation with the Florida – Boedo antagonism)

2. Gibbon, Gagnier and the milk of the camel

Edward Gibbon never said that there was no camel in the Qur’an. Speaking about the life of the Arabs at the time of Mohammed, he praises the camel:

Alive or dead, almost every part of the camel is serviceable to man: her milk is plentiful and nutritious; the young and tender flesh has the taste of veal (¹³)

Footnote 13 […] Mahomet himself, who was fond of milk, prefers the cow and does not even mention the camel. But the diet of Mecca and Medina was already more luxurious (Gagnier, Vie de Mahomet, tom. iii, p. 404).

Edward Gibbon The History of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, … Vol. IX, New York, Fred de Fau, 1907.

Speaking of Muhammad’s diet, Gagnier actually says,

« milk was the prophet’s most favorite element » (p. 401).

Later, he quotes Muhammad saying:

« Cow’s milk nourishes & sustains the body (…) It is the most commendable of all milks, & it surpasses by its good qualities the milk of Sheep & the milk of Goat, especially by its delicacy and unctuousness » (p. 404).

Jean Gagnier, La vie de Mahomet… [The life of Mahomet…] Amsterdam, Wetstein & Smith. 1748.

This is a hierachization of the milks, topped by goat’s miks, followed by sheep’s milk, followed down by cow’s milk, etc.

The fact that came’s milk is not mentionned is not silence, but a relevant omission, by application of relevance rule, as shown by the possibility to add an etc to capp-off Gagnier’s enumeration.

3 A misreading of Gibbon’s text? A tentative reconstruction

A quick reader goes over the trivial « accessory » (between brackets):

Mahomet himself, [who was fond of milk], prefers the cow and] does not even mention the camel

but on the “essential” beginning and end of the sentence:

Mahomet does not even mention the camel.

This could be seen as a case of omission of relevant circumstances (S. Accident), resulting in a misconstruction of the reference chain and of the topic of the passage.

Finally, since, basically, Muhammad is the Koran, the conclusion is that:

Gibbon says that the Koran does not mention the camel.

QED.

The Port-Royal Logic stigmatizes the technique of the inventio as stimulating the “noxious fertility of common thoughts” (Arnauld and Nicole [1662], p. 235). The same criticism applies to the techniques of elocutio, which stimulates and extolls the abundance of words (copia verborum) S. Ornamental, producing a verbose and redundant discourse:

Among the causes which lead us into error, by a false luster, which prevent our recognizing it, we may justly reckon a certain grand and pompous eloquence. […] for it is wonderful how sweetly a false reasoning flows in at the close of a period which well fits the ear, or of a figure which surprises us by its novelty, and in the contemplation of which we are delighted. (Id., p. 279)

The condemnation of the techniques stimulating the abundance of ideas as well as the abundance of words amounts to a general condemnation of rhetoric, as inherently fallacious. Cicero defines eloquence as copia verborum; that is eloquence; the rejection of eloquence, re-named verbiage to stigmatize its negative orientation, is a turning point in the relations between rhetoric and logic as a criticism of discourse. This fallacy of verbiage is, as it were, the mother of all fallacies. According to Whately:

a very long discussion is one of the most effective masks of the fallacies; […] a fallacy, which, asserted without a veil […] would not deceive a child can deceive half the world if it is diluted in a large quarto (Elements of Logic 1844) (quoted by Mackie, 1967, p. 179).

S. Systemic — Superfluity  — Fallacies (1)  — Fallacies (4): A Moral and Anthropological perspective

1. “Vicious circle”, “begging the question”, “petitio principii”

Petitio principii — In classical Latin, petitio means “request”, and principium “beginning” (Gaffiot [1934], Petitio; Principium). A petitio principii is literally a “request” of the “principles”. Tricot considers that the rendition as “petition of principle” is “vicious”. He notes that “what we ask to grant is not a principle but the conclusion to be proved” (note 2 to Aristotle, Top., VIII, 13, 162a30, p. 359).

The two expressions vicious circle and begging the question are equivalent. The expression vicious circle stresses the cognitive and textual, semantic aspects of the phenomenon, while begging the question emphasizes the dialectical interactional character of the same concept.

The speaker is “begging the question”, that is asking that what is « in question » (the disputed conclusion itself) be granted, as an argument or principle.

The Latin expression petitio principii is used as an equivalent of begging the question.

2. Vicious circle

In the Aristotelian system of fallacies, a vicious circle is a fallacy independent of language, S. Fallacies (2). It is a process of reasoning which seeks to prove a conclusion, by giving as an argument this conclusion itself. Hence the image of the circle. Its schematic form is:

A, since, so, because A.

There are different ways in which to beg a question (Aristotle, Top., VIII, 13).

2.1 Repetition

In ordinary discourse, compound statements “A because A” might be considered as begging the question from a logical point of view:

S1 — Mum, why do I have I to make my bed every morning?
S2 — You have to do it because you have to do it. It’s like that because it’s not otherwise

Nonetheless, despite its format, this is not a vicious circle. The answer is not an invalid justification but a refusal of justification, as testified by the associated mood, exasperation.

2.2 Reformulation

In common cases, there is a vicious circle where the conclusion is a paraphrastic reformulation of the argument:

I like milk because it’s good.

Fortunately I like milk, because if I did not like it I would not drink it, and it would be a pity because it’s so good.

When the very result to be demonstrated is postulated, “this is easily detected when put in so many words; but 
it is more apt to escape detection in the case of different terms,
or a term and an expression, that mean the same thing” (Aristotle, Top, VIII, 13).

In the theory of Argumentation within Language, the concept of orientation^@ introduces a bias which is not so different from mere petitio principii. The statement

Peter is clever, he will solve the problem.

The above example has a misleading deductive appearance, because the predicate “can solve problems” is in fact included in the definition of “is clever”. The misleading inference is actually a reformulation. Reformulations are interesting insofar as they are never strictly synonymous with their basis. Instead, they introduce a semantic shift, which can be productive. Begging the question is deceitful only in so far as it is strictly the same term that is repeated, S. Orientation.

Goethe claims that, in any argumentation, the argument is only a variation of the conclusion; hence it follows that argumentative rationality is simply vain rationalization:

§50 It is always better for us to say straight out what we think without wanting to prove much; for all the proofs we put forward are really just variations on our own opinions, and people who are otherwise minded listen neither to one nor to the other.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Maxims and Reflections.[1]

2.3 Ad hoc general laws

 The Topics point out the frequent case in which one assumes in the form of universal law what is in question in a particular case (ibid.):

Politicians are liars / corrupt. So this politician is a liar / corrupt

This is a most common kind of argumentation. The speaker postulates a one shot, ad hoc principle, in order to apply it to the case at hand. Such cases can also be analyzed as ill-constructed definitions: “being corrupt” is considered an essential characteristic of politicians, whereas it is only an accidental characteristic, S. Definition, Accident.

2.4 Mutual presupposition

Not all vicious circles are reformulations. An objection to the idea of ​​a miracle for example, is that it establishes a vicious circle. Miracles are said to justify the doctrine, to prove that it is true and holy, but a fact is recognized as a miracle only by the doctrine it is supposed to prove. It is a form of resistance to refutation:

S1_1 — This miraculous fact proves the existence of God.
S2_1 — But only those who believe in the existence of God recognize this fact as a miracle

S2 may add that S1 does not recognize other equally surprising facts; to which the latter might reply that:

S1_2 — These other facts are miracles operated by the devil to deceive people.

2.5 Equal uncertainty

The term diallel is used by the Skeptics, with a meaning identical to “vicious circle”:

And the circularity mode occurs when what ought to make the case for the matter in question has need of support from that very matter; whence, being unable to assume either in order to establish the other, we suspend judgment about both. (Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism, I, 15, 169)

This definition introduces a new concept of the vicious circle that no longer focuses on a semantic equivalence or an epistemic relation, but on the very definition of argumentation as a technique to reduce the uncertainty of a claim by connecting it to a less doubtful statement, the argument. S. Argumentation. Skeptics will therefore endeavor to show that the argument is systematically no more obvious than the conclusion. In this sense, Skeptics are the first deconstructionists.

3. Circularity in explanation

Circularity is welcome in definitions, but not in demonstrations or explanations. An explanation is circular, if the explanans is at least as obscure as the phenomenon it claims to account for.

[1] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Maxims and Reflections. Trans. by E. Stopp. London: Penguin Books, 1998. Quoted after https://issuu.com/bouvard6/docs/goethe_-___maxims_and_reflections__ No pag. Goethe gathered these maxims during all his life.

The appeal to the “true meaning of the word” is advanced in opposition to discourses which are said to use an incorrect, improper or superficial meaning of a given word. This appeal produces a stasis of definition, S. Definition (2). The true meaning of a word can be sought in:

— Its etymological meaning
— Its morphology
— The meaning of the corresponding word in another language.

1. Etymological argument

The label “argument by etymology” corresponds to different kinds of arguments, according to the meaning given to etymology.

1. Under the heading “argument from etymology”, some modern texts discuss phenomena related to related words (Dupleix, 1603).
2. In contemporary use, the etymological meaning of a word is the meaning of the oldest historical root identified in the word’s history. Etymological argument values the meaning of this root by considering that this ancient meaning corresponds to the true and permanent meaning of this word, which has been altered by historical evolution to produce a contemporary perverted and misleading meaning. This etymological meaning is used in argumentation exploiting a definition.

Atom comes from / is a Greek word composed of the negative prefix a- and a noun meaning “cutting”; it means “in-divisible”. So you cannot break the atom.

Democracy comes from / is a Greek word composed of demos “people” kratos “rule”. In Syldavia, the people don’t rule, they vote and forget. Thus, Syldavia is not in a democracy.

The appeal to etymology is itself supported by an argumentation by etymology, since the word etymology is derived from a Greek root ètumos meaning “true”.

Knowledge of etymology being culturally valued, the argument by etymology gives the speaker a certain ethotic posture of majesty and learned authority. It serves very well the strategy of destruction of the discourse “you don’t even know the language you claim to speak”, S. Destruction.

2. Argumentation based on the structure of the word

Lat. notatio, “the act of marking a sign … to designate […] to note”, as well as “etymology” (Gaffiot [1934], Notatio).

Cicero in the Topics defines the argument “ex notatione” (Topics, VIII, 35: 78), translated as “argument by etymology”. This translation takes the word etymology with its ancient meaning, “true”. The true sense of the word under examination is now defined as the meaning reconstructed by the correct analysis of the word (and not as its original historical meaning). One of the examples of argument discussed by Cicero in this context deals with a conflict of interpretation of a compound legal term (still in use today) the postliminium (Top., VIII, 36, p. 78). The postliminium is the right of a prisoner returning to his country to recover the properties and social position he held before his captivity. Cicero’s discussion concerns the establishment of the correct meaning of the word, relying on its linguistic structure, without any clear allusion to its etymology in the contemporary sense of the term.

A contradictory report (joint report) is a report reproducing the declarations of the two parties, and not a self-contradictory verbal report or a report contradicting another.

Argumentation by the structure of the word thus connects two argumentations:

— The first argumentation establishes the meaning of the compound word on the basis of the meaning of its terms and its morphological structure. This form of argumentation is relevant to all idioms whose meaning depends more or less on that of the terms that compose them. It is based upon linguistic knowledge and technique, S. Definition (1).

— A second argumentation exploits the “true” meaning thus established for some legal conclusion, according to the general mechanisms of argumentation by the definition, S. Definition (3).

The argument by the structure of the word functions as a way of avoiding conflict of interpretations.

3. Arguing from the meaning of the word in another language

One can look for the true meaning of the word in other languages, which for various reasons are considered closer to the “origin” or the “essence” of things. One such language is Chinese. The word crisis, for example, can be defined as “a time of intense difficulty or danger” (Google, Crisis). In search of “what crises really are”, one can shift to “what the word crisis really, truly, means”, and call on the word’s Chinese equivalent. The Chinese word meaning crisis is a compound of two word-signs, meaning respectively “danger” and “opportunity”. So crises are opportunities; and, by an argument based on the Chinese definition, we deduce that:

The opportunistic approach of the crisis then takes on its full meaning: Not to seize the opportunity of a crisis, means miss a chance, perhaps hidden, but within reach. (Stéphane Saint Pol, [Wei Ji, A return to the Roots][1])

The argument presupposes that the Chinese language has elaborated and preserved a better concept of crisis, closer to the essence of the thing, and better adapted to the modern world.

[1] www.communication-sensible.com/articles/article0151.php]. (09-20-2013).

In the Argumentation within Language theory of Ducrot and Anscombre, the topoi are defined as general gradual principles, relating predicates, and “presented [by the speaker] as accepted by the group” (Ducrot 1988, p. 103; Anscombre 1995a). The word topos (pl. topoi) will be used to refer to this specific concept as distinct from the classical argument schemes.

Topoi are pairs of predicates (noted by capital letters). The (+) or (–) factor indicates that these predicates are gradual.

This type of inter-predicate linkage was also observed by Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca in their discussion of values ([1958], pp. 115-128).

All predicates are gradual. For example, in a Syldavian subculture, the following topos might structure conversation about “being a real man” (M) and “drinking BeverageB”, (B); this relation is expressed by the topos “(+)M, (+)B”; advertisers claim that “real men drink BeverageB”; the more of BeverageB that one drinks, the more of a “real man” one will be.

The same predicate may be associated by the four topical forms, for example in the following argumentations.

(+) money (–) happiness: “he is a rich financier, so he has many anxieties and sleeps poorly”
(–) money (+) happiness: “money can’t buy happiness”;
“the poor cobbler sings all the day long”[1].

(–) money, (–) happiness: “lack of money is terrible”
(+) money, (+) happiness: “money can buy everything”.

In the case of sport and health:

(+) sport, (–) health: “champions die young”
(–) sport (+) health: “to stay healthy, refrain from sports” (Churchill, “no sport”).

(–) sport, (–) health: “when I stop training, I feel bad”
(+) sport, (+) health: “do a sport, you will feel better”.

In such cases, the predicates are linked by four different topoi <+/- S, +/- H>; nonetheless, communities have preferences, in this case for the two last ones.

These topoi are the exact linguistic expression of the “active associative nodes for ideas” mentioned by Ong (1958, p. 122); S. Collections (I). They express the possible linguistic associations between “having money” and “being happy”, between “living a healthy life” and “practicing sport”. To summarize, current talk about money and happiness prefers the (–, ­–) association, whilst current talk about sport and a healthy life prefers the (+, +) association.

Such associations will emerge in the discourse as reasonable and convincing inferences. In ordinary discourse a complex causal elaboration such as “some/all plant protection products are the/a cause of bees disappearance” boils down in ordinary talk to an accepted, doxical association “+PPP, – bees”.

These expressions are semantic inferences, and are pseudo-reasoning insofar as they say nothing about reality; discourse is an inference machine, an argumentative machine; language can and does speak. This vision legitimates the skepticism of the theory of argumentation in the language with respect to ordinary argumentation as a form of reasoning, S. Criticism. Reasoning emerges from ordinary talk only under specific conditions; there might be a big step between debating and learning (Buty & Plantin 2009).

[1] According to La Fontaine, “The cobbler and the financier”, Fables, Book VIII, Fable 2.