EXPRESSION

The term expression is used in Aristotelian rhetorical theory and critical theory with three quite different meanings.

1. A linguistic paralogism

In the Sophistical Refutations, the term “paralogisms of expression” includes the six “language-related” paralogisms:

Homonymy          Composition          Accent
Amphiboly           Division                   Expression.          S. 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. The speech may take the form of a demonstration, if, for example 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 said to be fallacious because of the “form of the expression”. The conclusion is drawn “although there has been no syllogistic process” (Rhet., II, 24, 1401a1; Freese, p. 325), that is without any real argumentation.

Such examples can sometimes be found in academic essays which are overloaded with argument indicators, in the hope that they will eventually produce an argument. The discourse of Pangloss, 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.

For example, according to Ryle, 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 hospital” refers to some existing object, its reference; this expression induces a belief in the existence of “‘ideas,’ ‘conceptions,’ ‘thoughts’ or ‘judgments’” (ibid.). Ryle thinks that in order to eliminate such non-existent entities, the statement must be rewritten in the form that corresponds 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 the study of misleading expressions as expressions that create non-existent problems, as seen in the previous case, or as expressions that are superficially similar but whose semantic structure is very different, as in the following examples.

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

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

— The similarity of superficial linguistic forms, can lead us to attribute to a word a false semantic characterization to a word. For example, suffering and running are syntactically, intransitive verbs, and, from this analogy, one might think that, suffering, like running, expresses an action.

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

[1] Quoted from Voltaire, Candide, Chapter V. New York, Boni and Liveright, 1918. No pag. https://archive.org/stream/candide19942gut/19942.txt (11-08-2017)