equivocation

WordNet

intentionally vague or ambiguous (同)prevarication, evasiveness
falsification by means of vague or ambiguous language (同)tergiversation

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どうにも取れる(あいまいな)言葉を使うこと

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出典(authority):フリー百科事典『ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』「2013/04/20 11:38:43」(JST)

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For other uses, see Equivocation (disambiguation).

Equivocation ("to call by the same name") is classified as an informal logical fallacy. It is the misleading use of a term with more than one meaning or sense (by glossing over which meaning is intended at a particular time). It generally occurs with polysemic words (words with multiple meanings).

It is often confused with amphibology (amphiboly) (ambiguous sentences.); however, equivocation is ambiguity arising from the misleading use of a word and amphiboly is ambiguity arising from the misleading use of punctuation or syntax.

Examples

Fallacious reasoning

Equivocation is the use in a syllogism (a logical chain of reasoning) of a term several times, but giving the term a different meaning each time. For example:

A feather is light.

What is light cannot be dark.

Therefore, a feather cannot be dark.

In this use of equivocation, the word "light" is first used as the opposite of "heavy", but then used as a synonym of "bright" (the fallacy usually becomes obvious as soon as one tries to translate this argument into another language). Because the "middle term" of this syllogism is not one term, but two separate ones masquerading as one (all feathers are indeed "not heavy", but it is not true that all feathers are "bright"), this type of equivocation is actually an example of the fallacy of four terms.

Semantic shift

The fallacy of equivocation is often used with words that have a strong emotional content and many meanings. These meanings often coincide within proper context, but the fallacious arguer does a semantic shift, slowly changing the context by treating, as equivalent, distinct meanings of the term.

In English language, one equivocation is with the word "man", which can mean both "member of the species, Homo sapiens," and "male member of the species, Homo sapiens." The following sentence is a well-known equivocation:

"Do women need to worry about man-eating sharks?", in which "man-eating" is construed to mean a shark that devours only male human beings.

Switch-referencing

This occurs where the referent of a word or expression in a second sentence is different from that in the immediately preceding sentence, especially where a change in referent has not been clearly identified.

Metaphor

All jackasses have long ears.

Carl is a jackass.

Therefore, Carl has long ears.

Here the equivocation is the metaphorical use of "jackass" to imply a stupid or obnoxious person instead of a male donkey.

"Better than nothing"

Margarine is better than nothing.

Nothing is better than butter.

Therefore, margarine is better than butter.

Specific types of equivocation fallacies

See main articles: False attribution, Fallacy of quoting out of context, No true Scotsman, Shifting ground fallacy.

References

External links

Logical Fallacy: Equivocation The Fallacy Files

English Journal

Pathways to palliative care for patients with chronic kidney disease.

Bull R1, Youl L, Robertson IK, Mace R, Challenor S, Fassett RG.Author information 1School of Nursing and Midwifery, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia.AbstractBACKGROUND: Despite the terminal nature of chronic kidney disease (CKD), end-of-life care planning is often inconsistent and pathways to palliative care are unclear. Health professionals' perceptions of palliative care and the prevailing context may influence their end-of-life decision making.
Journal of renal care.J Ren Care.2014 Mar;40(1):64-73. doi: 10.1111/jorc.12049. Epub 2014 Jan 18.
BACKGROUND: Despite the terminal nature of chronic kidney disease (CKD), end-of-life care planning is often inconsistent and pathways to palliative care are unclear. Health professionals' perceptions of palliative care and the prevailing context may influence their end-of-life decision making.OBJECT
PMID 24438676

Is procreative beneficence obligatory?

Saunders B.AbstractJulian Savulescu defends the principle of procreative beneficence, according to which parents have a prima facie moral obligation to choose the child with the best expected life. In this paper, I argue that Savulescu fails to show that procreative beneficence is genuinely obligatory, because of his equivocation between moral reason and moral obligation. Savulescu assumes that morality requires us to do what we have most (moral) reason to do, but many deny this, for instance because they believe we have reasons (but no obligation) to perform supererogatory actions. Even if parents have moral reasons to choose the child with the best expected life, they may not be under any obligation to do so.
Journal of medical ethics.J Med Ethics.2014 Feb 12. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2013-101711. [Epub ahead of print]
Julian Savulescu defends the principle of procreative beneficence, according to which parents have a prima facie moral obligation to choose the child with the best expected life. In this paper, I argue that Savulescu fails to show that procreative beneficence is genuinely obligatory, because of his
PMID 24523029

New error bounds for M-testing and estimation of source location with subdiffractive error.

Prasad S.Author information Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, USA. sprasad@unm.eduAbstractI present new lower and upper bounds on the minimum probability of error (MPE) in Bayesian multihypothesis testing that follow from an exact integral of a version of the statistical entropy of the posterior distribution, or equivocation. I also show that these bounds are exponentially tight and thus achievable in the asymptotic limit of many conditionally independent and identically distributed measurements. I then relate the minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) and the MPE by means of certain elementary error probability integrals. In the second half of the paper, I compare the MPE and MMSE for the problem of locating a single point source with subdiffractive uncertainty. The source-strength threshold needed to achieve a desired degree of source localization seems to be far more modest than the well established threshold for the different optical super-resolution problem of disambiguating two point sources with subdiffractive separation.
Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, image science, and vision.J Opt Soc Am A Opt Image Sci Vis.2012 Mar 1;29(3):354-66. doi: 10.1364/JOSAA.29.000354.
I present new lower and upper bounds on the minimum probability of error (MPE) in Bayesian multihypothesis testing that follow from an exact integral of a version of the statistical entropy of the posterior distribution, or equivocation. I also show that these bounds are exponentially tight and thus
PMID 22472767

Attached to a diagnosis: the quandary of social deficits and reactive attachment disorder.

Phelps R1, Eisert D, Schulz S, Augustyn M.Author information 1Child Development and Rehabilitation Center, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR, USA.AbstractCASE: : Alex is a 9-year-old boy brought to you, his primary care provider, for a "fifth opinion." You have cared for Alex since he was adopted from a Romanian orphanage at 3 years of age. He has been physically healthy with normal growth parameters and no evidence of fetal alcohol syndrome. Alex has long-standing history of social difficulties, impulsivity, lying, controlling, manipulative behaviors, violent outbursts at home with subsequent lack of remorse, and excessive chatter. You referred Alex to an interdisciplinary child development clinic 2 years ago, where he was diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder (RAD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He was noted to have normal cognitive and language skills. Attachment therapy, stimulant therapy, and school accommodations for ADHD were recommended.Alex received some individual counseling with the school psychologist for a year after the first evaluation, with little improvement in core behaviors. The following year, Alex established care with a psychiatrist and a private counselor. The psychiatrist prescribed a succession of stimulants, each of which worked for only a short time and then had waning effect. The counselor worked with Alex and his parents on managing Alex's behavior, which the family reports has been somewhat helpful.Alex's parents express great frustration and sadness that parenting Alex has been such an ongoing struggle since he was adopted. They note that Alex is superficially friendly, chatty, and charming, with everyone he encounters, including strangers, but he never progresses past such superficial interaction, even with his adoptive parents. The parents express that they are deeply wounded that Alex is not more loving and is not more appreciative of the fact that they rescued him from the orphanage.His parents asked his pediatric clinician about Autism as they observe Alex's lack of real affection and social connection with parents or peers. They also note that Alex has difficulty verbalizing his feelings and that he lies frequently, chatters tangentially, and he can watch the Discovery channel for hours. A neurologist, to whom Alex was referred to evaluate staring spells, reassured the family that the spells did not seem to be epilepsy and also diagnosed Alex with "Asperger's syndrome." The school psychologist, after 2 years of equivocation, recently made Alex eligible for autism spectrum services.During the interview and examination, Alex is funny, friendly, and a bit silly. He uses normal eye contact, seems to enjoy the neuromotor examination, and is eager to show you his cool, new handshake. He engages in easy banter, using normal vernacular and prosody. After the visit, you call the therapist to express your opinion that the RAD diagnosis is valid after all and to ask whether the family is engaged in attachment therapy. The therapist refutes the RAD diagnosis, endorsing Asperger's syndrome (AS) instead and notes that Alex is making good progress in school and in therapy, where he is learning pragmatic skills and basic social skills with the use of social stories.Where do you head next?
Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBP.J Dev Behav Pediatr.2012 Jan;33(1):84-6. doi: 10.1097/DBP.0b013e31823ff33e.
CASE: : Alex is a 9-year-old boy brought to you, his primary care provider, for a "fifth opinion." You have cared for Alex since he was adopted from a Romanian orphanage at 3 years of age. He has been physically healthy with normal growth parameters and no evidence of fetal alcohol syndrome. Alex ha
PMID 22218019