What do you call an illogical statement that seems logical because of grammar? Do you have any example of a philosopher who wrote a grammatical sentence in the hope of constructing an logical argument, but the sentence falls flat on its face when analyzed logically analytically piece by piece?
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1Hegel has been accused of this, IIRC (by Popper???). Personally, for what it's worth, my memory of ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE is of grammatical but ultimately illogical (or sublogical) rambling about "Quality." The name for this phenomenon? Sophistry. – Kristian Berry Jun 22 '21 at 03:41
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1Do you have an example of what you are talking about? I don't know what it would mean for an illogical statement to "seem" logical. – David Gudeman Jun 22 '21 at 06:06
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1"illogical" is probably not the right word... We have the well-known Chomsky's example of a grammatical sentences that has no meaning: "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously". – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Jun 22 '21 at 07:28
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1For a different context, see another well-know example: Carnap's analysys in Überwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache (1931) of a statement from Heidegger's lecture What Is Metaphysics? (1929): "The Nothing itself nothings. [Das nicht nichtet]" – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Jun 22 '21 at 07:46
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1"What do you call an illogical statement that seems logical because of grammar?" Meaningless. – Mauro ALLEGRANZA Jun 22 '21 at 07:47
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1@mauroallegranza claims you mean a grammatical sentence that has no meaning. Is that what you are talking about? – David Gudeman Jun 22 '21 at 22:57