"The phrase begging the question originated in the 16th century as a mistranslation of the Latin petitio principii, which in turn was a mistranslation of the Greek for "assuming the conclusion"." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
"Assuming the conclusion" is a very good name. Use that.
If you are in the business of linguistic prescriptivism, do not try to prescribe something that's a mistake built on a mistake.
This claim on Wikipedia is false. The article referred to does
not claim that `petitio principii' or `begging the question' is
a ``mistranslation''. Nor are they. They are both perfectly
correct and reasonable translations of `τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ αἰτιεῖσθαι'
(from Aristotle), which means to beg (ask, αἰτιεῖσθαι) one's
interlocutor to grant one the very point in question (the
``question''), which one set out (in the beginning, ἐν ἀρχῇ) to
demonstrate. (Literally, it means: ``the (thing) in (the)
beginning (to) beg''.)
Then update the Wikipedia page with a source or mention it on the Talk page of the article. It's the best way to push human development forward when you see something untrue.
@desilentio pushed human development forward by informing the original commenter that its source, in this instance wikipedia, is flawed (to nobody's surprise).
There are many high-quality sources on the Internet and in books. No need to rely upon one source (wikipedia) that has a dubious reputation.
Nevertheless, @3pt14159, you do make a good point. So, please lead us lowly forum posters/readers to the best way to push human development forward and actually do as you are authoritatively telling others to do. Verify the veracity of the misinformation on wikipedia and submit an update(s). Glad you thought of this! Let us know when you finish this initial task.
I don't consider people lowly, I merely think that the debate over veracity of a fact on Wikipedia is better left to the moderators of Wikipedia than it is to have a debate.
In terms of my own contributions, I've been doing so for years. I've even started major pages going back as far as 2004 when they were missing. I didn't know anything about this specific topic so I didn't feel comfortable proffering an edit.
> Begging the question is about assuming the truth of one or more premises
No, begging the question (the fallacy) is about assuming the conclusion you are attempting to support.
> Assuming the conclusion sounds equivalent to "non-sequitur" or just not making any argument at all.
It is very different from non-sequitur, but since it means making an argument that reduces to "P, because P", describing it as "not making an argument at all" is not wholly wrong.
I actually like the common (so-called "incorrect") use a lot because:
* It is distinct from the fallacy use because the fallacy is always intransitive and the common use is invariably transitive, naming the question so "begged" as the direct object; thus, it is impossible to confuse one use for the other.
* The fallacy use, as noted elsewhere, is the result of a series of mistranslations and, standing on its own, is bizarre in English.
* the "incorrect" use is a much more natural use of the English words which also makes the fallacy use more natural, since it is exactly equivalent to the "incorrect" use with the unstated, implicit direct object of "the question the debate was attempting to resolve".
So, accepting the "incorrect" use has no conflict with the use to denote a particular fallacy and, indeed, makes that use more natural.
The logical fallacy of "begging the question" is essentially "A because A" although the two propositions are usually worded in a way that obfuscates their identity. For example "opium makes you sleep because it's soporific," where "soporific" is a fancy way of saying "makes you sleep."
In colloquial speech, the phrase "begging the question" is often not used to refer to the logical fallacy but rather the more literal translation of "makes you ask."
In the traditional relationship, the student is begging the teacher. In general, the person making an argument is begging you to accept their point instead of arguing it. The question is the point of contention.
If we are arguing about Windows or Linux and I say that Linux is better designed because it has a clearly superior architecture, I'm begging the question because I'm just asking you to accept it instead of supporting my argument.
Also, I wonder if the misunderstanding of the term has prompted many people to start looking into formal logic. In our linked world, I could imagine people looking something like that up after they hear it's misused and finding information about a lot of related issues around logic.
The website says, at the top: "[phrase] is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself."
Since the speaker is attempting to provide evidence for a "statement or claim", we could say that, if the argument were correct, then that "statement or claim" would be the conclusion. Therefore, we can substitute "conclusion" for "statement or claim", and get: "[phrase] is a form of logical fallacy in which a conclusion is assumed to be true without evidence other than the conclusion itself." Therefore, "assuming the conclusion" is a very appropriate name for the thing they're talking about.
The "assuming the truth of one or more premises" you talk about, where those premises are different from the conclusion, seems like a different type of fallacy than what this website is talking about.
Assuming the truth of one or more premises is not a fallacy; it is just what one does in any argument. If your argument is valid (i.e., if the premises are true, then the conclusion must follow), it can still be shown to be unsound by showing that one or more of its premises are, in fact, false.
And while we often hold that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, it is not a formal fallacy to state an extraordinary premise without adequate justification. Whether you can get anyone to accept it is another matter. It is generally easier if you can find someone who likes your conclusion, which is how most political debate works.
But seriously, this is a piece of information I wish I didn't know.
I wish I didn't know it because (1) I see "begs the question" used much more frequently to mean "compels us to consider" than the logical fallacy and (2) every time I see it used that way, an annoying, pedantic voice in the back of my head says, "oh, it's used wrong!"
And then I have to waste some mental effort to tell that voice to STFU. It's rather distracting.
So anyway.
The problems are (1) the phrase "begs the question" is much more evocative of the "wrong" meaning than the "correct" meaning and (2) the wrong meaning is needed far more often than the correct one (people talk about things that need to be talked about more than they talk about making conclusions that accidentally assume themselves).
Thus, I suggest we officially (perhaps a people's petition to the white house? I'm sure the current president would be sympathetic to our cause) abandon the use of "begs the question" to mean "assumes the conclusion", and finally put this annoying matter to rest.
> I wish I didn't know it because (1) I see "begs the question" used much more frequently to mean "compels us to consider" than the logical fallacy and (2) every time I see it used that way, an annoying, pedantic voice in the back of my head says, "oh, it's used wrong!"
I've trained myself to automatically substitute "prompts the question" whenever I see "begs the question". That way I save emotional energy. (A technique learned from several XKCD cartoons.)
How about this: let's retire "begging the question" entirely.
It's an awkward phrase, which doesn't make a lot of sense with respect to either of its intended meanings. The original meaning is rooted in mistranslation of Greek to Latin to English, so it can hardly be upheld as correct in any sense.
The "raises the question" meaning is more plausibly connected to the plain syntax of the phrase, in fact. That misuse exists precisely because that's how native English speakers hear it, when they are not familiar with the clumsy idiom from the realm of formal reasoning.
To say that "beg the question" cannot mean "raise the question" is a bit like saying that one cannot say "kick the bucket" to describe the action of kicking a bucket, because someone has already decided that it's an idiom meaning "to die". Except that "to kick the bucket" is perfectly grammatical, whereas "to beg the question" isn't, because the direct object of "to beg" has to be an agent which can grant a wish or supply something. The correct syntax would be "to beg for the question (to be asked)". "The point you have raised practically begs for the question to be raised that ... blah blah".
Thus, it may be time to lay "begging the question" to rest. A good way to do that may be to declare it archaic.
I think it's useful (and the court of public usage, even in relatively high-status things like national news broadcasts) agrees. "Raise the question" isn't as emphatic as the new "wrong" usage of "beg the question" is. Begging is stronger, more insistent, than just asking for something or inviting something. People use "beg the question" when they're trying to say that a situation just BEGS for a given question to be asked.
Totally agreed; simply dropping this phrase altogether is what I've landed on as the best fit. Regardless of whether it's being used correctly, the primary signal sent by users of this phrase is "I believe I sound linguistically impressive right now". That's not worth saving.
Once a public impassioned plea like this shows up, you know the battle has long since been lost. Sure, we'll convince everyone to stop using "begs the question" incorrectly...right after we convince them to stop using "decimated" as a synonym for "devastated," and "comprised of" instead of "composed of," and...
> stop using "decimated" as a synonym for "devastated"
OTOH decimation actually was devastating, the idea that it just means "lose 10% of" really undersells the process of punishing a large group of your army by dividing them into groups of 10 and forcing each group to choose one at random and then the other 9 murder them by stoning.
Yeah, having one in 10 of your closest friends/colleagues being killed would be pretty damn devastating under any circumstances, let alone in the manner you describe here.
It’s like ten thousand descriptivists, when all you need is a prescriptivist…
I think words like “ironic” and “literal” have a lot of staying power, even if they have seceded a little ground on informal use. There will always need to be a case when it’s important to disambiguate how ironic one is being. Irony is often made clear by over-exaggeration or stock phrases (eg “/s”, eye dialect “you guise”), but sincerity can be made unambiguously clear with a term such as “unironic”, which is often avoided in irony to keep things clear
Obviously this begs the question of if someone were to use “unironic” ironically, but outside of being used in rare cases of hyper-irony, the only use I can think of this misdirection is to be purposefully malicious. So even without prescriptivism, I believe that irony (at least as made clear in “I was being ironic”) is a word one that is very hard to kill.
I don't understand why people get upset at people using 'literal' incorrectly.... it is almost always used as a form of hyperbole, which seems like a totally valid linguistic use.
If I say "oh man, I literally die every time someone complains about people using literally wrong", I am clearly using hyperbole... no one is being confused, and I am not changing the meaning of a word.
Do people think we are going to ruin accurate measurements when I say something like, "this thing weighs a ton!" when the item clearly weighs a lot less than 2000 pounds?
The whole point of "literally" is to mean "this is not hyperbole or exaggeration, I mean the thing that I am saying". So using it to exaggerate can be confusing. Of course in most cases you can figure out what the person meant with a bit of effort, but that's true of any mistake.
I was visiting a friend at college, staying in his room. I once told him that I would be literally sleeping with someone, and he at first didn't realize that this meant I wouldn't be sleeping in his room that night. So the corruption of "literally" has indeed interfered with my communication.
It's the corruption of "literally" in "literally sleeping with". My friend didn't realize that this meant sleeping in that person's bed with them, until I explained it.
While I agree that it's a valid example of hyperbole, to me, using literally to mean figuratively is the sonic equivalent to writing many exclamation points!!!!!!! You can do it, but it's bad form, and doesn't make the point the speaker wants to make
I contend that this isn't a thing. It's absolutely the case that "literally" is often used when the sentence is figurative, but for it to mean "figuratively" it would have to be the intent of the speaker that the inclusion of "literally" makes the utterance more likely to be understood as figurative. I think it is instead used as an intensifier.
All of that said, I don't have any principled objection to protest against it on stylistic grounds. I just think we should try and be clear about what's going on. (And I recognize that I'm disagreeing, here, with at least one dictionary - I believe they got it wrong.)
Let me guess, you literally did that unironically?
I always thought that the perfect example of irony would be to write a song about irony in which you use a bunch of examples that aren't ironic... but that's just me.
"Literally" is often used when the utterance is figurative, but it is used as an intensifier by way of hyperbole. Saying it should be "figuratively" is incorrect - that would not serve the same role.
For me it is the use of "they" as a singular pronoun.
I learned to read and write in the 1970s and 1980s and misusing "they" in a singular context would result in a red mark on one's paper and a lower grade.
Any time I read a sentence that uses "they" as a singular it's a small mental roadblock. It's like stumbling on a displaced brick in a sidewalk. If I read "a good programmer will work to understand the problem they are trying to solve" I will mentally trip over that and be distracted from the point being made.
If I don't know whether my subject is a male or a female person, I will use "he" as the singular. "A good programmer will work to understand the problem he is trying to solve."
I learned that "he" refers to a male or is neutral, but don't mind when writers use "she" as long as they are consistent about it. In a paragraph about the habits of a good programmer, flipping from "he" to "she" every other sentence is also distracting.
Also OK if the writer avoids the issue: "Good programmers will work to understand the problems they are trying to solve."
Yes I realize that the usage of "they" has evolved, as language does, but for me it's hard-coded in ROM at this point.
At the same time, we're not trying to communicate with any 15th century readers. If it's in fact prevalent that a large number of readers have trouble with a construction, it doesn't really matter how recently that trouble arose, does it?
Cheer up! English has it easy in this respect — although I'll readily grant that it is even easier in elliptical languages that usually omit gender specific references altogether, like Japanese.
In Dutch it will be an uphill battle to get a singular 'hen/hun' accepted.
Oh, to be clear, I have no personal objection (philosophical or comprehensive) to singular they and use it regularly without thinking. I just felt like the point that was addressed wasn't the most important point that was made.
> Yes I realize that the usage of "they" has evolved, as language does
Gender-neutral semantically-singular “they” has always been widely used in English (including by highly regarded professional writers, as well as in common speech and writing), though it experienced a period of disfavor in academic circles starting from the period for the Victorian prescriptivists and just starting to fade recently.
I don't agree with your belief that using "they" as a singular pronoun is wrong but I won't argue with that - each to their own.
However, I wonder what pronoun do you use when you want to refer to a single person whose gender you know but don't want to reveal. Occasionally this is done in storytelling so as not to give away the identity of a character. Or more commonly, I use the word "they" when talking about someone I know to someone else whose gender is irrelevant. For example, I might say to my dad that I will be going out with a friend who happens to be a girl but I'll use "they" because I don't want to have to deal with the inevitable reaction from him that I'm seeing a new girlfriend. I realise that without the word "they", I would have other options but I wonder if you take this particular usage into account when you talk about defaulting to "he" or "she"?
> I learned that "he" refers to a male or is neutral, but don't mind when writers use "she" as long as they are consistent about it.
This advice seems pretty questionable to me. It seems evident that neither 'he' nor 'she' are actually neutral. Even if one accepts that they can be used with that intent, they still colour ones perception of the person in the minds eye.
I'd be interested to know which pronouns you use in speech when the gender of the target is unknown. For example in the following cases:
- A baby whose gender you don't know
- A pet whose gender you don't know
- Someone who has been referred to in conversation (perhaps someone talking about "my friend") whose gender you don't know.
It is kind of funny that "beg the question" is a turn of phrase prescriptivists and descriptivists are fighting over. The phrase originally comes from a mistranslation of the Latin petitio principii which itself was a mistranslation of the original Greek which approximately meant "assuming the conclusion." The original mistranslation is unfortunate because, at least to me, the more recent meaning of basically another way of saying "raises the question" actually makes a lot more sense.
> It would be as though people started using "the die is cast" to mean dying, simply because the word "die" is in there, without any knowledge of Caesar. Is there any idiom -- not a single word, but a full phrase -- whose meaning has changed over the years, simply by virtue of its being misunderstood by the linguistically inept or the historically ignorant?
Ironically enough, Caesar’s quote of Menander likely meant “this crossing of the Rubicon is a roll of the dice”, or “let the dice be thrown”, not that his crossing is setting in motion the irrevocable. So there’s that.
George Orwell wrote in 1946: "Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning without those who use them even being aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line. Another example is the hammer and the anvil, now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about: a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original phrase." http://people.ucalgary.ca/~rseiler/orwell46.htm
Thanks in some part to Asterix comics portrayal of Caesar as a gambler, I always took this phrase to mean just that. There is a sense of irrevocable commitment that it implies, because once the dice have left the shooter's hand, no adjustment to bets are allowed. Your fate is sealed.
Only upon puzzling upon your comment did I realize that there was another way to creatively misconstrue those words in english, reading "die" as mould, and "cast" as to form on such a device. Therefore, "the die is cast" = "the mould has been poured". Once it hardens, again, your fate is sealed.
Isn't that kind of the same thing? By crossing the river, he's now - irrevocably - throwing the "civil war" die. After that point, one of two things will happen: he either wins the civil war, or loses and dies/is exiled. Basically, "the gamble is in motion", starting then. There's no turning back.
> it cannot be denied that logic and philosophy stand to lose an important conceptual label should the meaning of BTQ become diluted to the point that we must constantly distinguish between the traditional usage and the erroneous "modern" usage.
It can definitely be denied. Words and phrases can mean different things depending on the context. For example, calling copyright infringement piracy doesn't deny anything to those who practice naval law.
I have never heard that word before, but I guess I am one, except for when blockchain has tried a hostile takeover of “crypto”. I’ll fight for that one
I suspect another example of laissez-faire linguists might be the argument over (some) “non-inclusive words”. There were arguments here on HN want the words to move on in their meaning while others want to always connect words to their negative-origins (though some of these connections never actually existed).
I guess I sit in the middle. It depends on the phrase!
American English is defined by usage. It has no official standards body setting its rules, unlike some other languages.
Irregardless, the fact that so many are bothered by this reality really begs the question: why are unravel and ravel held to a completely different standard? Get off my lawn.
Nice. I think I’m going to add this kind of “using begs-the-question correctly but in a way that looks incorrect” to my other annoying linguistic hobbies, like “using apposite where people might confuse it with opposite” and “using vicarious in a sentence without “through <entity>”. ;)
The "correct" use is unclear and not obvious. Even people who are aware of the correct usage frequently get it wrong (see comments here). There has to be a better term for this.
The "incorrect" use is actually useful (which, I guess, is why the phrase has been co-opted for it). There are statements that "beg the question" and that's a useful phrase to have (and a much clearer use of it). I shall continue using it for this :)
Because "raise the question" doesn't have the same connotation as the commonly-understood meaning of "beg the question".
Begging the question means (to most people, I think) that there is an obvious question in response to the statement. The statement itself is "begging" for this question to be asked.
Raising the question means that one's response to the statement is to ask a question. It may not be obvious, and it's not an attribute of the statement itself that implies this response.
That's a valid point. But isn't it a bit archaic to have the thing begged for as a direct object? Wouldn't it be more normal to say `beg for the question'?
Yeah I can see that. But it feels weird to say it.
The English expressions I do wish people would get right are "moorish" meaning spicy (after the Moors), not "I want more of this", and "enormity" meaning horrible, not huge. But English is always changing, and using these phrases in their correct meaning now confuses people.
I first came across this while studying Roberts Rules of Order. Since these rules are followed in many fraternities, unions, and even the US legislative branch government. It’s very likely that the phrase is being used “incorrectly” by people familiar with that style of meeting.
To be fair, it is to “call the question”, and I very likely misremember it as “beg” because it’s so common.
To “call the question” means to end debate and vote. In this regard, the meaning used “incorrectly” in logic terms, is very precise in a colloquial one.
So, if you feel bad about the grammar nazis breathing down your throat, say: “...which calls the question...” and you will be safe.
Alternatively, though, you could reserve the phrase for the times that you genuinely see a logical fallacy. The only downside to this is that you’ll likely still be surrounded by people who don’t know, and probably don’t care, about the difference.
This usage is infrequent to the point of complete redundancy, it's based on a dodgy translation and feels ill fitting, the alternative "circular argument" is making a much better job of it anyway, all of which begs the question: is there anything wrong with re-employing the phrase somewhere else where it seems to work nicely?
Whenever I use "begs the question" I'm only doing it to broadcast that I'm well educated to a presumably educated observer. That I know that it means "circular reasoning" is itself a form of a signal. I chose to use it over alternatives as a form of extended trust in the other party's education as well. Essentially it's a term used when having scotch with Obama's education secretary[0], not something to use over beers with the mates.
The issue with re-deploying it to mean "raises the question" is that it does the opposite. It signals to those that know its true meaning that the person employing it in that way is sloppy or imprecise or even that they are willing to knowingly appear to be so in order to redefine the language to better suit their preference.
This is essentially a matter of class and to any communicator that cares about how they're perceived it's important to use it correctly or to avoid it entirely.
[0] I befriended him and an economist at the world bank at a cafe in DC and ended up at a scotch party. It was just as fun as you're imagining and made me want to move there. Washington is where America seems to hide their smart, empathetic people.
From the FAQ: 'Descriptivist linguists, whom we do not fault for their stand, are quite free to watch as we bring about an evolution in the vernacular understanding of "begging the question."'
I'm in the descriptive camp as a general rule, but I feel that the fight to "save" beg the question is a worthy one
Where/when did you learn formal logic, if you're comfortable sharing? I ask because I feel like it's rare that I see someone using the Lemmon style of writing/displaying proofs rather than the Fitch style.
>>> Shouldn't we accept that words change in meaning over time?
> True, words like "cool" and "gay" gained new meaning via a process of modern association with their understood meanings, but BTQ abuse rises from a misunderstanding of its original use. It would be as though people started using "the die is cast" to mean dying, simply because the word "die" is in there, without any knowledge of Caesar. Is there any idiom -- not a single word, but a full phrase -- whose meaning has changed over the years, simply by virtue of its being misunderstood by the linguistically inept or the historically ignorant?
Sure. But if we told them, they could care less about it. Or, um, couldn't care less about it.
This is a losing battle. People obviously find the "invites the question" usage useful, and are using it. Few people are in need of a confusing-sounding way to say "assumes the conclusion".
I found the second best definition of the urban dictionary greatly refreshing. Quoting it here:
> beg the question
> Phrase that is now used instead of "raises the question" due to the fact that the true definition is unintelligible to most people, and has little to do with an actual question.
> Best not to use it at all, as you will either sound ignorant to geeks, or geeky to regular people.
TIL that I have been using 'beg the question' wrongly.
Early (non-)examples I saw of the phrase, in newspapers, led me to understand that it meant "to leave the question going begging", such as when a politician is asked something he/she does not wish to answer--and does not answer, in a great many words.
In hindsight I should have known better. Journalists mostly get the content of their stories wrong; why would they get their language right?
In any case, the interpretation of the phrase lies in the eye of the beholder. Where, by eye I mean ear and beholder I mean escalators. And by interpretation I mean squirrels.
The simple reason this grates on nerves so much is that it is so frequently used to try to convey the erudition of the speaker. The irony is that it has the opposite effect.
This particular error bugs me more than most because I always have to stop and try to figure out if some question is actually being begged. The writer is wasting my time for no reason and is distracting me from their point. It would be different if it was a simpler concept.
These kinds of things always read like someone trying to let everyone know that they're smart by holding a factoid over their head. It's like when a health nut tells you something like, "You know, 90% of people are dehydrated every day."
It is important to understand that `question' does not here mean what it normally means (a query), but rather `the proposition in question'. Begging the question is asking one's interlocutor to accept as true the very proposition in question.
It's hopeless. Whatever is in widespread usage ultimately wins out. For example, the very word "meme" has come to mean just a small subset of what Richard Dawkins intended.
It's probably not a good idea to use the same variable for both, also 'x' is not a logical statement so the proof would look more like:
∀x. P(x)
P(c)
where c can be anything. This is usually called something like instantation or ∀-elimination. I suppose you could call P(c) a trivial consequence of ∀x. P(x), no matter what c is. The formula P(x) could be something like 'if x is human they are mortal, so something like 'if "Scorates" is human they are mortal" is a trivial consequence, as is 'If "Blue" is human they are mortal".
This invites the question of how much wretched usage it takes for the usage to overcome its wretchedness, "irregardless" of efforts to stem the fell tide.
"Assuming the conclusion" is a very good name. Use that.
If you are in the business of linguistic prescriptivism, do not try to prescribe something that's a mistake built on a mistake.