How can we see through each other's sophistry?

Consciously using sophistry to demonstrate fallacies is called sophistry. Sophistication is extremely deceptive and confusing, and sophistry techniques are ever-changing. The common sophistry in the debate is roughly as follows.

Steal the concept. Conceptually playing games is a common trick of sophists. Often use one word with multiple meanings and eight words with the same shape, but it does not mean the same concept with the same concept; Or use the method of stealing the beam to change the connotation of one concept and make it another.

Aubrey was a famous sophist in ancient Greece. One day, he said to his friend, "You have nothing to lose, so you have this thing, don't you?"

The other party replied: "Yes."

The sophist went on to say, "You haven't lost the horn on your head, have you?" Then you have horns on your head. "

"Things that have not been lost" should refer to things that have not been lost, not things that have not been lost. That's what the sophist said in the first sentence, and then the phrase "nothing lost" became something that never existed. The concept of "nothing lost" is different between the first sentence and the second sentence, which leads to an absurd conclusion.

When someone said Aubrey lied, he said slyly, "Whoever lies means something that doesn't exist;" Things that don't exist can't be said, so no one lies. "

Aubrey deliberately confuses the concept here. He said, "whoever lies means something that doesn't exist." This "non-existent thing" is what the liar said is untrue and does not conform to the reality; And he said, "You can't say things that don't exist, so no one lies." The "things that don't exist" here refers to things that don't exist in the world, so they can't be imagined in thinking, and of course they can't be told. The meaning expressed by two "things that don't exist" are two different concepts.

To deal with this sophistry, we can deal with it by clarifying the concept, that is, explaining the concept correctly and clarifying its connotation and extension.

The fuzziness of the topic. This sophistry is often used to avoid giving a positive and clear answer to the question under discussion. For example, fortune tellers often use "father first and mother later" to prevaricate when answering questions about parents' life and death. This is a typical vague topic, which can be explained from four aspects: first, the father is here and the mother is dead; Second, my father died and my mother was there. Third, my parents are here, but they died at different times. Fourth, both parents are dead, but the order of death is different. In the debate, if you encounter such ambiguous and ambiguous situations, you should ask the other party to give a clear and affirmative answer.

Fabricate an argument In this case, point out the falsity of the other party's argument. Change the subject. In this case, you can ask the other party to stick to the discussion of the problem and not "digress" or "digress". In addition, sophistry tactics include sophistry, taking it out of context, mechanical analogy, generalization, dilemma reasoning, and even manipulation and personal attacks.

In addition to adopting corresponding debate methods for each sophistry, there are also some methods worth learning from.

Reduction continuation method. According to the assumption of sufficient conditions, the rules of denying the latter and the former are deduced to refute the sophistry topic.

In the waiting room of a bus station, a young man spat on the white wall.

The stationmaster said to him, "Young comrade, have you seen the sign' No spitting'?"

The young man replied, "Yes, I threw up on the wall, not on the ground."

The manager said, "since you say so, I'll spit on your clothes if I have phlegm." . Because the clothes are not on the ground. "The young man was speechless. Here, the administrator adopted the reduction to absurdity, first assuming that the young people's sophistry topic "You can spit on the wall" is correct, and then drawing the conclusion that "You can spit on clothes" is unacceptable to the sophist, thus proving that the sophistry topic is also absurd.

Put it in the urn. According to Zi Tong Zhi Jian, when Wu Zetian was in power in the Tang Dynasty, the punishment was very heavy. On one occasion, someone sued Zhou Xing in front of the Queen, and Wu Zetian ordered a gentleman to invite Zhou Xing to drink, pretending to ask him the method of interrogation. Zhou Xing didn't know it was a scam. He said drunkenly, "What's the difficulty? Just put the prisoner in a big jar and burn it on a charcoal fire, and everything will be confessed. " Lai Junchen lit a charcoal fire as planned and prepared a big jar. Then his face changed, and he said sternly, "Zhou Xing, someone told on you. Would you please go to the urn? " Zhou Xing was so scared that he was covered with dirt and sweaty. Later, "please go to the urn" became an idiom, meaning to treat people and things. In the debate, "into the urn" refers to an eloquent way to induce opponents to dig traps and trap themselves. After talking about the enemy's tricks, there are often hardships and there is no way back.

There are all kinds of sophistry, and the methods to deal with sophistry are far more than the above. In the specific application, it should be based on the actual situation. You can use one method alone or several methods in combination. You need to improvise, improvise. In short, you must stop the sophists.