Does Expertise Favor the Detection of the Metaphoric Fallacy?

The paper aims at clarifying whether and to what extent expertise plays a role in the detection of ambiguity fallacies, such as quaternio terminorum, where a metaphor is the middle term in one of the premises (metaphoric fallacy). We tested a group of (N=40) non-experts adults and a group of (N=40) experts adults (scholars having a strong training in philosophical logic), by using a series of verbally presented arguments, having the structure of quaternio terminorum and containing either a lexical ambiguous or a metaphorical middle term. The experimental results of the study show that non-experts tend to judge sound quaternio terminorum with lexicalized metaphors as middle terms, when the conclusion of the argument is far from being patently false. Nonetheless, metaphorical middle terms seem to have also an effect on experts’ intuitions on fallacious argument with plausible conclusion. However, this effect is mitigated by expertise.