word choice - What do you call the exploitation of ambiguous statements to form a logical argument?


If I were construct an argument containing the postulation



Men commit more crimes than women.



I would be guilty of a logical fallacy because this statement implies



  1. All men commit crimes.

  2. The man who commits the fewest crimes still commits more than the woman who commits the most crimes.


There is a name of this type of logical fallacy. I think it is a kind of hasty generalization, but I'm not sure which. Can someone please help me find the right term?


EDIT:


So to try to clarify what I'm asking (since I don't have the right lingo apparently), I think I have worked out that there are really two parts to this question.


We can agree that the predicate "Men commit more crimes than women" is ambiguous.


Ambiguity is not a friend of logic; so firstly what might you call a statement that requires disambiguation before it can be considered acceptable in an argument?


Secondly, is there a term that describes the exploitation of ambiguous statements to further an argument? (Is this a logical fallacy? If so, what kind? If not, what else might we call it?)



Answer



While reading through some of the other questions on this site, I found this answer, which suggests the word sophistry:



Sophistry: a subtle, tricky, superficially plausible, but generally fallacious method of reasoning.



This term seems very suitable for my purposes. I suggested that the respondent submit it as an answer to this question, but no one has done so. Therefore, I'm submitting it, and accepting it as an answer.


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