I get the impression from hearing other people talk about it that there is a single meaning, and that I’m not understanding what that single meaning is
People are often wrong about that.
A person who understands this effect can use it to exploit people, and when they do it is called “equivocation”, to use two different senses of the same word in quick enough succession that nobody notices the words aren’t really pointing at the same thing, to then use the inconsistencies between the word senses to approach impossible conclusions.
I wish I could drop a load of examples but I’ve never been good at that. This deserves a post. This deserves a paper, there are probably whole philosophical projects that are based on the pursuit of impossible chimeras held up by prolonged, entrenched equivocation...
One such essay about a concept that is either identical to equivocation, or somewhere in the vicinity (I’ve never quite been able to figure out which, but I think it’s supposed to be subtly different) is Scott’s post about Motte and Bailey, which includes lots of examples
People are often wrong about that.
A person who understands this effect can use it to exploit people, and when they do it is called “equivocation”, to use two different senses of the same word in quick enough succession that nobody notices the words aren’t really pointing at the same thing, to then use the inconsistencies between the word senses to approach impossible conclusions.
I wish I could drop a load of examples but I’ve never been good at that. This deserves a post. This deserves a paper, there are probably whole philosophical projects that are based on the pursuit of impossible chimeras held up by prolonged, entrenched equivocation...
One such essay about a concept that is either identical to equivocation, or somewhere in the vicinity (I’ve never quite been able to figure out which, but I think it’s supposed to be subtly different) is Scott’s post about Motte and Bailey, which includes lots of examples