A better translation would have been "assume the conclusion. It makes more sense in a newer version of the phrase. Since the s we've seen a steady increase in phrases like a question that begs to be answered and one question begs an answer :.
Still, the question begs to be asked: How could a team with one road win possibly be overconfident? The other key question that begs to be answered is: what is valuable in Yahoo to buy? These uses still trail beg the question by a lot, but they're increasing—most likely because the logic in them is more easily seen.
There's a segment of the population that would be enormously relieved if phrases like a question that begs an answer replaced the usual begs the question uses.
These are people who think using beg the question to mean "to cause someone to ask a specified question as a reaction or response" is completely and thoroughly wrong. There are probably more of these people than you think, and they are judging the rest of us. For these people, the only "correct" way to use the phrase beg the question is with the meaning "to ignore a question or issue by assuming it has been answered or settled. Rich parents send their daughters to all-female schools; why shouldn't the daughters of the poor enjoy similar advantages?
That's an appeal bound to elicit sympathy, especially from guilty liberals, but it begs the question of whether the daughters of the rich benefit from single-sex education. Perhaps they benefit merely from being rich and attending elite private schools with favorable student-teacher ratios and superior facilities and curricula.
But the notion of a homunculus—a "little man"—inside the brain who watches the world on something like a little television set is hardly an explanation, because it begs the question of how the little man himself is able to perceive things.
Concealed in him must be an even smaller man who watches an itsy-bitsier TV, and so on ad infinitum, like nested Chinese boxes. The problem is that beg the question is only very rarely used this way, as language blogger Stan Carey explains here. In our dictionary the sense bears the label "formal.
Beg the question is a phrase from formal logic. We have Aristotle to thank for it—or, actually, an anonymous 16th century translator who took Aristotle's phrase petitio principii and rendered it in English as "beg the question. Here's an example:. If left to themselves, children will naturally do the right thing because people are intrinsically good. Sign in via your Institution. You could not be signed in, please check and try again.
Sign in with your library card Please enter your library card number. Related Content Related Overviews fallacy validity.
Show Summary Details Overview begging the question. Subjects: Philosophy. View all related items in Oxford Reference » Search for: 'begging the question' in Oxford Reference ». All rights reserved. Sign in to annotate. That might be true, it might not, but because it forces the answer to go in a certain direction, it is an example of begging the question. Radio interviews and talk shows conversations can beg the question by asking leading questions that try to box you in to a certain answer.
By signing up you agree to our privacy policy. Article Being Human. Rather than proving the conclusion is true, it assumes it. Should I trust Steve? Premise: Steve is a trustworthy person because I trust him.
Conclusion: Therefore, you should trust Steve. Premise: Steve is a lovable person because I love him.
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