What are the most important elements of a definitional argument?

Every argument has four essential elements: 1. A thesis statement, a claim, a proposition to be supported, which deals with a matter of probability, not a fact or a matter of opinion. 2. An audience to be convinced of the thesis statement.

What is the opposite of a tautology?

tautology. Antonyms: conciseness, brevity, laconism, compression. Synonyms: verbosity, redundancy, needless, repetition, pleonasm, reiteration.

What is the difference between tautology and pleonasm?

Pleonasm has a sense of using an unnecessary overabundance of redundant words in one description. Tautology has a sense of saying the exact same in different words, using multiple words with the same meaning.

Is survival of the fittest a tautology?

“Survival of the fittest” is sometimes claimed to be a tautology. It is true that the phrase “survival of the fittest”, in and by itself, is a tautology if fitness is defined by survival and reproduction.

Is Evolution a tautology?

Therefore, evolution by natural selection is a tautology (a circular definition). The real significance of this argument is not the argument itself, but that it was taken seriously by any professional philosophers at all.

What is a tautological theory?

In Mathematical logic, a tautology (from Greek: ταυτολογία) is a formula or assertion that is true in every possible interpretation. An example is “x=y or x≠y”. A less abstract example is “either the ball is green, or the ball is not green”. This would be true regardless of the color of the ball.

Why is tautology used?

Tautology is a literary device whereby writers say the same thing twice, sometimes using different words, to emphasize or drive home a point. It can be seen as redundancy, a style fault that adds needless words to your idea, statement, or content; or it can be defended as poetic license.

What is an argument of fact?

“An argument of fact is basically a claim about what is or is not the case in the real world. Many times, claims of fact need to go beyond what can be directly observed; academic claims of fact deal with inference and conclusion—they tend to involve a lot of analysis of evidence.”

What is the opposite of a paradox?

paradox. Antonyms: precept, proposition, axiom, truism, postulate. Synonyms: contradiction, enigma, mystery, absurdity, ambiguity.

Is an argument a fact?

An argument is not a statement of fact. An argument is a claim asserted as true. An argument must be reasonable.