§ 835. The Fallacy of Accent ([Greek: prosodía]) is neither more nor
less than a mistake in Greek accentuation. As an instance Aristotle
gives Iliad xxiii. 328, where the ancient copies of Homer made
nonsense of the words [Greek: tò mèn oú katapútetai ómbro] by writing
[Greek: oû] with the circumflex in place of [Greek: oú] with the acute
accent. [Footnote: This goes to show that the ancient Greeks did not
distinguish in pronunciation between the rough and smooth breathing
any more than their modern representatives.] Aristotle remarks that
the fallacy is one which cannot easily occur in verbal argument, but
rather in writing and poetry.
§ 856. Modern writers explain the fallacy of accent to be the mistake
of laying the stress upon the wrong part of a sentence. Thus when the
country parson reads out, 'Thou shall not bear false witness
_against_ thy neighbour,' with a strong emphasis upon the word
'against,' his ignorant audience leap [sic] to the conclusion that it
is not amiss to tell lies provided they be in favour of one's
neighbour.
§ 857. The Fallacy of Figure of Speech [Greek: tò schêma tês léxeos]
results from any confusion of grammatical forms, as between the
different genders of nouns or the different voices of verbs, or their
use as transitive or intransitive, e.g. [Greek: úgiaínein] has the
same grammatical form as [Greek: témnein] or [Greek: oìkodomeîn], but
the former is intransitive, while the latter are transitive. A sophism
of this kind is put into the mouth of Socrates by Aristophanes in the
Clouds (670-80). The philosopher is there represented as arguing that
[Greek: kápdopos] must be masculine because [Greek: Kleónumos] is. On
the surface this is connected with language, but it is essentially a
fallacy of false analogy.
§ 858. To this head may be referred what is known as the Fallacy of
Paronymous Terms. This is a species of equivocation which consists in
slipping from the use of one part of speech to that of another, which
is derived from the same source, but has a different meaning. Thus
this fallacy would be committed if, starting from the fact that there
is a certain probability that a hand at whist will consist of thirteen
trumps, one were to proceed to argue that it was probable, or that he
had proved it.
§ 859. We turn now to the tricks of refutation which lie outside the
language, whether the deception be due to the assumption of a false
premiss or to some unsoundness in the reasoning.
§ 860. The first on the list is the Fallacy of Accident ([Greek: tò
sumbebekós]). This fallacy consists in confounding an essential with
an accidental difference, which is not allowable, since many things
are the same in essence, while they differ in accidents. Here is the
sort of example that Aristotle gives--
'Is Plato different from Socrates ?' 'Yes.' 'Is Socrates a man ?'
'Yes.' 'Then Plato is different from man.'
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