Paralogism in Political Rhetoric: Selected Texts Attributed to Umayyad Governors and Senior Officials

Abstract

There is no doubt that political rhetoric, related to the state’s conditions, public affairs, ruling, and other related issues, is a rich topic for various types of arguments at all levels that aim to convince the recipient of the soundness of the opinion presented, or the invalidity of the opinion being objected. Notably, the argument may deviate from its intended purpose, and instead be covered by misleading purposes, through which the speaker seeks to deceive the recipient and make him/ her believe that the argument is sound and correct.

     Accordingly, this study seeks to reveal the other side of the argument; known as ‘paralogism’ in modern argumentative studies, adopting selected texts from political speeches of Al-Umayyad governors and senior officials. It attempts to address, “How do we analyze texts of political discourse in light of paralogism and its mechanisms?’ The study adopted three critical approaches: historical, artistic, and pragmatic argumentation.

The findings revealed that paralogism is a type of argumentation that lacks validity, but provides the impression that it is true. The results also showed the use of Umayyad governors and senior officials of various paralogism mechanisms in their political speeches. Moreover, it was found that non-linguistic paralogisms were highly used in comparison to other types of paralogisms.