Hedging

Wikipedia

Hedging

'Hedging in arguments means sheltering behind ambiguous meanings so that the sense can be changed later.' (120).

To paraphrase the author's example:

We stated we did not want a full-fledged war in the Middle East; that is still the position, we entered into limited war. (120).

This type of argumentation allows for a 'definitional retreat.' (120).

'Hedging is fallacious because it puts two or more different statements under the guise of one'. (120).

It is a semantic game in parsing the difference between a 'limited war' and a 'full-fledged' war. Is any war 'full-fledged' without nuclear weapons?

Hedging hopes that the reviewer of argumentation, will not know better (120); the information presented becomes useless because it is not presented accurately. (120).

To avoid hedging one could state:

'We are entering into war; we are committed.'

Or:

'We are not entering into war, because the risks are too great.'

Hedging again...

We stated we did not want to colonize Mars, that is still the position, but we have several Mars space missions planned.

Interestingly, Pirie indicates that Nostradamus used hedging to make obscure predictions. (121). The author reasons that observers look for what they want to see as far as what has already occurred and apply what Nostradamus predicted. This does not assist in making accurate predictions. (121).

Hedging uses dishonesty and ambiguity. (121).

Logically Fallacious

Cited

Description: Refining your claim simply to avoid counter evidence and then acting as if your revised claim is the same as the original.

Logical Form: Claim X is made. Claim X is refuted. Claim Y is then made and is made to be the same as claim X when it is not.

References: Dowden, B. (n.d.). Fallacies | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/ 

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This article was used as a secondary source for an entry on academia.edu on 20250215.

BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 

CONWAY DAVID A. AND RONALD MUNSON (1997) The Elements of Reasoning, Wadsworth Publishing Company, New York. 

LANGER, SUSANNE K (1953)(1967) An Introduction to Symbolic Logic, Dover Publications, New York. (Philosophy).

PIRIE, MADSEN (2006)(2015) How To Win Every Argument, Bloomsbury, London.