John Wilkins wrote:
Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> wrote:
[snip]
But they are both logical fallacies, although I don't believe that I
have ever heard anyone called on ad homonym before. Would ad homonym
would be a species of equivocation,
legerdemain in the use of the word 'evolution'
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990704214620.893193A-100000%40umbc8.umbc.edu
or is equivocation a special case of
ad homonym?
Neither the use of an ad hominem
Feynman, R. Reid, and Berlinski on _ad hominems_
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990102235105.11328B-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
nor a homonym is in itself a fallacy.
Ad hominem merely means that you grant the disputant's premises in order
to argue top a conclusion they may not like. The fallacy arises in
taking the conclusion to be true, or thinking that by attacking the
person you have discredited their argument. The use of homonyms is
likewise fine so long as you do not illicitly infer from one meaning to
another in an argument. For example, if I said that because creationists
are sheep they should be [literally] shorn, that would be a case of a
misuse of homonyms. More generally, this is called the fallacy of
amphiboly.
.
