EXPRESSION

In Aristotelian rhetorical and critical theory, the term expression has three distinct meanings.

1. A linguistic paralogism

In the Sophistical Refutations, the term “paralogisms of expression” refers to the six “language-related” paralogisms.

Homonymy          Composition          Accent
Amphiboly           Division                   Expression.          see fallacy (2): Aristotle basic list.

This label can also be used to refer specifically to the paralogism of homonymy.

2. Pseudo-Deduction

A passage is said to be fallacious by expression when although it is formally expressed as a demonstration, it has no demonstrative content. For example, speech may take the form of a demonstration, if the speaker introduces a large number of argumentative indicators. If there is no semantic connection between the connected propositions A and B, the argument “A, therefore B” is fallacious due to the “form of the expression”. This is because no syllogistic process can occurr, or in other words, no real argumentation has taken place (Rhet., II, 24, 1401a1; Freese, p. 325).

Such examples can sometimes be found in academic essays that overload the text with argument indicators, in the hope that an argument will eventually emerge. Pangloss’s discourse, railed against by Voltaire in Candide, is of that kind.

[After the earthquake that devastated Lisbon]
Some [citizens] whom they had succored, gave them as good a dinner as they could in such disastrous circumstances; true, the repast was mournful, and the company moistened their bread with tears; but Pangloss consoled them, assuring them that things could not be otherwise. “For,” said he, “all that is for the best. If there is a volcano in Lisbon it cannot be elsewhere. It is impossible that things should be other than they are; for everything is right.
Voltaire, Candide, or The Optimism. [1759].[1]

3. Misleading Expressions

In Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations, the fallacy of “form of expression” is also called the fallacy of “form of discourse”, as well as a “figure of discourse”, a label that is likely to cause considerable confusion. The fallacy of form of expression corresponds exactly to the phenomenon that analytic philosophers discuss under the heading of misleading expressions.

According to Ryle, for example, a statement such as “Jones hates the thought of ​​going to the hospital” (1932, p. 161) suggests that the phrase “the thought of going to the hospital” refers to some existing object. This expression induces a belief in the existence of “‘ideas,’ ‘conceptions,’ ‘thoughts’ or ‘judgments’” (ibid.). To eliminate such non-existent entities, Ryles believes that the statement must be rewritten to correspond to its semantic-ontological reality: “Jones feels distressed ,when he thinks of what he will undergo if he goes to the hospital” (ibid.). This new formulation should contain no reference to deceptive entities such as “the idea of ​​going to the hospital” (ibid.).

Analytic philosophy has devoted considerable effort to studying misleading expressions as expressions that create non-existent problems, as seen in the previous case, or as expressions that are superficially similar but have a very different semantic structure is, as in the following examples.

— According to Austin’s analysis (1962), descriptive and performative statements have the same superficial grammatical structure but different meanings and references. The former refer to states of the world, while the latter produce the reality they describe.

— The statements “the path is stony and steep” and “the flag is red and black” are syntactically analogous. However, one can infer from the first  statement that “the path is stony” and that “the path is steep”, but not from the second statement that “the flag is red” and “the flag is black”. The fallacies of composition and division can be seen as a special cases of the fallacy of the form of expression.

— The similarity of superficial linguistic forms, can lead us to incorrectly characterize a word’s meaning. For example, suffering and running are syntactically, intransitive verbs. From this analogy, one might incorrectly assume that, suffering, like running, expresses an action.

— The arguments drawn from derived words might also be criticized as cases of fallacies of expression.

[1] Quoted from Voltaire, Candide, Chapter V. New York, Boni and Liveright, 1918. No pag. https://archive.org/stream/candide19942gut/19942.txt. Accessed August 11, 2017).