dormitive principle

dormitive principle

English

Etymology

A modern translation of Latin, virtus dormitiva, coined by Molière in The Imaginary Invalid. 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".

Noun

dormitive principle (plural dormitive principles)

1. (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

• dormitive virtue

Translations

rhetoric

Finnish: virtus dormitiva Latin: virtus dormitiva Portuguese: princípio dormitivo m Russian: снотво́рный при́нцип m (snotvórnyj príncip)

See also

• aureation
• jargon
• skotison