Ipse dixit
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Ipse dixit, Latin for "He, himself, said it," is a term used to identify and describe a sort of arbitrary dogmatic statement which the speaker expects the listener to accept as valid. It is also called "the bare assertion fallacy."
Ipse dixit denies that an issue is debatable. In other words, "that's just the way it is."
The fallacy of defending a proposition by baldly asserting it as a fait accompli ("That's just how it is") distorts the argument by opting out of it entirely: "The most basic way to distort an issue is to deny that it exists."
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History
The Latin form of the expression comes from the Roman orator and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) in his theological studies De Natura Deorum (On the Nature of the Gods) and is his translation of the Greek expression (with the identical meaning) «αὐτὸς ἔφα», an argument from authority made by the disciples of Pythagoras when appealing to the pronouncements of the master rather than to reason or evidence.
Before the early 17th century, scholars applied the ipse dixit term to justify their subject-matter arguments if the arguments previously had been used by the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BC).
Ipse-dixitism
In the late 18th century, Jeremy Bentham adapted the term ipse-dixit into the word ipse-dixitism. Bentham coined the term to apply to all non-utilitarian political arguments.
Legal usage
The term ipse dixit has been used in modern legal and administrative decisions, generally as a criticism of arguments based solely upon the authority of a given person and/or organization.
In 1997, the US Supreme Court recognized the problem of "opinion evidence which is connected to existing data only by the ipse dixit of an expert."
See also
- Argument from authority
- False dilemma
- Law of similars
- The Moon is made of green cheese
- Dixit
- Truthiness