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Sophism: Sophism is a deceptive argument or fallacious reasoning used to deceive or persuade, often emphasizing rhetorical skill over truth. It's criticized in philosophy for its disregard of objective truth. See also Sophists, Rhetoric, Truth, Discourse, Argumentation, Objectivity.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Paul Feyerabend on Sophism - Dictionary of Arguments

II 221
Sophism/Feyerabend: Argument form: if A, then either B or C. Neither B nor C, and therefore not A. E.g. the arguments of Zenon have this form.
Sophism/Feyerabend: E.g. God:
1) God must be one. If they were many and they were the same, there would only be one. If they are unequal, then there are some and these are one. And the others are not, and therefore do not count.
2) God cannot have emerged. If He had emerged, he would have emerged either from equal or from unequal things. The emergence from of equal things means to stay the same. Emergence from the unequal is impossible, for what is cannot come from what is not.
3) God must be omnipotent: an omnipotent God comes from equal or unequal things. In the first case, He remains the same, i.e. does not emerge. In the second case, He comes either from stronger or weaker things. He cannot come from stronger things, for then the stronger thing must still be exist. Nor can He come from the weaker things, for the weaker thing has no power to do that.
"Conservation Principles"/Theology/God/Feyerabend: the conservation principles are included in these arguments and are used in proving non-B and non-C. They assume that the only property that a God possesses is his being or his power. Differences are differences in being, i.e. between being and non-being.
Feyereabend: this is a very dilute and completely inhuman concept of God.


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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.

Feyerabend I
Paul Feyerabend
Against Method. Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge, London/New York 1971
German Edition:
Wider den Methodenzwang Frankfurt 1997

Feyerabend II
P. Feyerabend
Science in a Free Society, London/New York 1982
German Edition:
Erkenntnis für freie Menschen Frankfurt 1979


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