Abstract

SEOANE, José. False Opposition: Five Enigmas for the Interpreter. Diánoia [online]. 2019, vol.64, n.82, pp.85-113.  Epub May 12, 2020. ISSN 0185-2450.  https://doi.org/10.22201/iifs.18704913e.2019.82.1636.

Lógica Viva, the most important philosophical work of Vaz Ferreira, has deserved diverse interpretations and developments. In particular, this has happened with his chapter on false opposition. The main objective of this paper is to recognize five enigmas in this chapter relevant to an interpretation and decisive for certain developments. These are the following: how should one understand opposition in this context? What is the role that exemplification plays in the characterization of fallacies? How relevant are the literal and non-literal dimensions to understand them? What is the “bad argument” considered a “false opposition”? In which ways does it fail and in which ways does it persuade? I also use a model of argument analysis (called M), inspired by the ideas of Vaz Ferreira, in order to show how its use supports, on one hand, an explicit treatment of these enigmas and, on the other, challenged by these, might suggest interesting lines of interpretation and/or development.

Keywords : Vaz Ferreira; Lógica viva; paralogisms; false opposition; M model; fallacies; informal logic.

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