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---
title: Ambiguity
tags:
- topic/ambiguity
- type/encyclopedia-entry
---
# Ambiguity
Not to be confused with [[uncertainty]].
## Common Fallacies
### Reification Fallacy
> [!quote] [Reification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reification_(fallacy))
> **Reification** ... is a fallacy of ambiguity,
> ...it is the error of treating something that is not concrete...
> as a concrete thing.
See ["the map is not the territory"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Map-territory_relation "Map-territory relation").
> [!aside]
> This one is very common among my peers in estimating.
> The problem with fallacies, of course,
> is that you can't simply say "Reification fallacy, booyah".
> If some one is overgeneralizing,
> they likely just have a different understanding of the term.
> Certainty of definition only occurs with some quorum,
> and I'd argue most of ours in [[construction-estimating]] don't meet it,
> and that the choice of any term over another ought to be based on utility.
>
> > Note also that a term's definition can be certain ~~on some axis~~,
> > but ambiguous ~~on another~~.
> > See ["I know it when I see it"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it)
> > which, as far as I'm concerned, is a perfectly legitimate definition.
### Equivocation Fallacy
[Equivocation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation "Equivocation")
The misleading use of a word with more than one meaning
### Composition Fallacy
[Composition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition "Fallacy of composition")
Assuming a whole has a property because its parts have that property
### Division Fallacy
[Division](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division "Fallacy of division")
Assuming parts have a property because the whole has that property