dormitive principle
English
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Etymology
[edit]A modern translation of Latin, virtus dormitiva, coined by Molière in The Imaginary Invalid (1673). In the play, he lampoons a group of physicians providing an explanation in macaronic Latin of the sleep-inducing properties of opium as stemming from its "virtus dormitiva". The currency of this phrase as a critique of scientific claims is due to Gregory Bateson (1976, Steps to an Ecology of Mind p. 5), as is the translation of virtus as 'principle'.
Noun
[edit]dormitive principle (plural dormitive principles)
- (idiomatic, rhetoric, logic, linguistics) A type of tautology in which an item is explained in terms of the item itself, only put in different (usually more abstract) words.
- 1988, Doreen Kronick, New Approaches to Learning Disabilities: Cognitive, Metacognitive, and Holistic:
- We note Bateson's (1968) dormitive principle at work in which behaviors are described as traits such as LD, which then are used to explain the behavior.
- 2000, “Rational Choice and Rationallity”, in The Paradox of Social Order: Linking Psychology and Sociology, page 14:
- For Arrow, many socioeconomic phenomena are explained in terms of the "dormitive principle", which, he says, simply repeats the phenomenon being explained.
- 2002, Bradford Keeney, Aesthetics of Change, The Guilford Press,, →ISBN, page 33:
- If we examine traditional explanations of behavior through the lens of recursion, we will sometimes find what Bateson called "dormitive principles," a form of circular description. A "dormitive principle" is a more abstract repackaging of a description of the item you claim to be explaining. To paraphrase Bateson, this occurs when the cause of a simple action, as for example, when aggression is explained as being caused by an "aggressive instinct" or psychotic symptomatology is attributed to "madness."
- 2003, Ian Glynn, An Anatomy of Thought: The Origin and Machinery of the Mind:
- And to any intelligent reader, explanation of an 'inherent ability' was reminiscent of Molière's mock explanation of the soporific effects of opium - that it contained a 'dormitive principle'.
- 2017, Bradford P. Keeney, Aesthetics of Change, page 38:
- Similarly, to view “leadership" as something that resides in a person is to generate a dormitive principle. This would inspire such pseudoexplanations as “He leads because he possesses leadership qualities.”
- 2018, Roberto Pereira, Juan Luis Linares, Clinical Interventions in Systemic Couple and Family Therapy, page 215:
- Prevent disability from becoming a dormitive principle that can, per se, justify any conduct or event in the interaction of the disabled person
- 2018, Michael D. Reiter, Systems Theories for Psychotherapists: From Theory to Practice:
- To say that "he only uses drugs because he is the black sheep” is to mix up these logical types, also called invoking the dormitive principle.
Synonyms
[edit]Translations
[edit]rhetoric
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