False argument, three Liars and a conclusive end of a discussion

Abstract

We propose a conception of false argument as the opposite to the conception of valid argument with respect to three approaches to arguments, inferential, dialogical, and abstract. A false argument is strongly invalid according to all the validity criteria of arguments, as distinct from a weakly invalid argument amounting to flawed arguments ac­cording to one of the criteria. The examples from the narratives of the film “Wag the dog” and A. Strindberg’s novel “The Sacred Bull or The Triumph of Lies” illustrate the rele­vance of the conception of false arguments for the analysis of argumentation from the perspective of the addressee, which paves the way for differentiating the epistemological approach to falsity from that of logic. False arguments are defined in three ways of refer­ring to them in dialogs, referential, attributive and self-referring, call them Liars (a), (b) and (c) respectively. False arguments of Liar (b) exist for all the three kinds of arguments. In the referential sense, there exists only a dialogical false argument; inferential false ar­guments are redundant. The conception of a false dialogical argument supports an effec­tive resolution of difference of opinions in discussion where the author fails to prove their point.