dormitive principle
A type of tautology in which an item is explained in terms of the item itself, only put in different (usually more abstract) words.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
“Explaining that water is wet is just a dormitive principle.”
“The professor warned the students that defining a process by its own name is a classic dormitive principle.”
“The politician's claim that the law failed because it was ineffective is a dormitive principle that avoids explaining the actual reasons for the policy's collapse.”
“By claiming that the medicine works because of its healing power, the author relies on a dormitive principle rather than providing a scientific explanation.”
first recorded 17th c.
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'.
Last updated August 10, 2026