An Interpretive Fallacy: contra implicationem

 I've been listening to a debate on polygyny (yes, I know, a great use of time but we're discussing it on the podcast this week), and it dawned on me, in light of the previous post a few months ago, that there is a fallacy often committed that people often just label as an argumentum ex silentio when, in fact, I don't think it is. 

Take this example. Two guys are arguing over whether Isaac was a monogamist. Now, the text never says that Isaac does not have other wives, and so the polygynist wants to argue that it can't be determined whether Isaac was a monogamist or not since both arguments are arguments from silence.

The problem with this is that it ignores the literary ques within the implicatures of what is said and what is not said both in terms of the pattern of commentary on this sort of relationship in the author (statement of marriage, genealogies, rivals to Jacob and Esau from other marriages, etc.) and in the way that Isaac and Rebecca are described in their devotion to one another. I would even say that when it says that Isaac "loved" Rebecca it refers to him choosing her over any other woman to be his wife, i.e., a statement of exclusivity. However, nothing is definitively stated.

This is not an argument from silence. It is an argument from implicature, which is just as much a matter of authorial intent as any explicit statement. 

What this means is that the person arguing against these implicatures, these literary ques, that lean in one direction and not the other is making what I would call an argument "contrary to the implicature," or contra implicationem  (i.e., what is contrary to things entangled within the explicit text) if you prefer Latin for your fallacy chart.

If one commits this fallacy, he is not on equal footing with his rival interpreter. If the text leans in one direction due to what is implied by the literary context, what is expected but left out, or other explicit statements then an argument to the contrary of these facts fails and the one who leans on them is on the right track to interpreting the text correctly.