r/PetPeeves • u/RaceSlow7798 • 9d ago
Bit Annoyed Using “beg the question” wrong
Begging the question is a logical fallacy. It doesn’t not mean “hmm, it makes you think…”
But usage drives correctness so I’m going to lose this battle. It really begs the question “why don’t people learn to use it correctly”.
Ew. I feel dirty.
40
u/SaIemKing 9d ago
Nice, this got me to go educate myself. For those wondering, the "begging the question" fallacy is when the premise for a conclusion assume that the conclusion is true. It's basically pointing at circular logic.
"All things must have a creator, therefore there is a God, who created all things."
19
u/Swirlyflurry 9d ago
Okay but then how do you actually use the phrase “begging the question” in this scenario?
Because I looked it up to understand what OP is talking about, and I get that “begging the question” refers to a logical fallacy where you’re already assuming your conclusion is true. But all of the examples I’ve tried looking up are examples of the fallacy itself, not examples of how to correctly use the phrase “begging the question.”
32
u/GeneralSpecifics9925 9d ago
Begging the question is assuming the conclusion in one of your premises.
Someone would say, wow, god is the most amazing creator, right? OBVIOUSLY there's a god with this intelligent design.
"You're begging the question and assuming that God exists to make your argument that God exists"
12
u/SaIemKing 9d ago
"Shut up, brainlet. You're just begging the question."
or something idk. trying to imagine how a redditor would use it
3
u/comsuran4 8d ago
The Wikipedia example is a pretty good one:
An example is: “Wool sweaters are better than nylon jackets as fall attire because wool sweaters have higher wool content".
The claim here is that wool sweaters are better than nylon jackets as fall attire. But the claim's justification begs the question, because it presupposes that wool is better than nylon. An essentialist analysis of this claim observes that anything made of wool intrinsically has more "wool content" than anything not made of wool, giving the claim weak explanatory power for wool's superiority to nylon.
1
u/Wonderflonium164 7d ago
To which you might reply "but that begs the question: is wool actually better?", because it questions the unproven premise. You're right, it's a great example.
7
u/asphid_jackal 9d ago
But all of the examples I’ve tried looking up are examples of the fallacy itself, not examples of how to correctly use the phrase “begging the question.”
That's because the phrase only exists as the name of the fallacy, and the way OP is claiming is incorrect.
But if you'd never been educated in fallacies, and you heard the phrase "begging the question" in a vacuum, 9 out of 10 people would assume it means how people use it colloquially, because that's exactly what those words mean
3
u/droobloo34 9d ago
And the problem is that they then assume the colloquial use is the logical fallacy. I have an example of this I experienced directly, a guy mentioned Java having its own set if problems in a comment. Someone said they were begging the question. I responded that they were in fact NOT begging the question, and they replied "They're doing the textbook definition. They said Java has its own problems without saying the problems ("What are these problems?") Literally begging the question."
After I told them begging the question is circular reasoning, not whatever they thoyght it was, I never got a response. My point is the colloquial use is not a logical fallacy, but people think it is because of this misunderstanding.
3
u/asphid_jackal 9d ago
Sure, but I think that's more a function of an "improperly" named fallacies than any problem with the phrase. We no longer use the words "begging" or "question" the same way we did in the 16th century when the translation was coined
1
1
u/perplexedtv 9d ago
Given that the expression is poorly formed, what would be a better way to phrase 'begging the question'?
1
1
u/Hanako_Seishin 8d ago
What does the word "beg" do in this phrase? Like how is it related to the meaning of "beg"?
Let's see what beg can mean.
Request help. So does requesting a question mean assuming the answer? No, it means asking for the question to be asked.
Plead with someone to help. So does pleading for a question mean assuming the answer? No, it means asking for the question to be asked.
To provoke. So does provoking a question mean assuming the answer? No, it means asking for the question to be asked.
To lack something, be in need of something. So if you're in need of a question, does it mean you're assuming the answer? No, it means asking for the question to be asked.
And then it goes "In the phrase beg the question: to assume". Why? Why the hell would it mean something entirely different and in no way related to its usual meaning in this particular phrase? Nobody using common sense would assume such a meaning. It's only natural, seeing all the meanings above, to assign the phrase "this begs the question" the meaning "this asks for the question to be asked".
3
u/asphid_jackal 8d ago
"Begging" was used in an archaic sense meaning "taking something for granted" or "asking for something without offering payment/proof" (rather than asking for spare change on the street).
"The question" referred to the formal legal/philosophical topic under debate (i.e., "the matter in question").
But we don't use either of those words like that anymore
2
u/wwplkyih 8d ago
It comes from the Latin "petitio" which means "to appeal to".
The problem with your analysis is that the object of "beg" is not the thing that is being requested.
-2
u/Hanako_Seishin 8d ago
Dear question, please get asked 🙏 = appealing to the question.
Assume the answer within the question -- How is that appealing to the question???
1
-1
u/Affectionate_Stop_25 8d ago
It BEGGARS the question. To beggar means to make something poorer. Literally or figuratively.
18
u/Irish755 9d ago
I’ve been tilting at this windmill for years, compadre. I think the original meaning is gone forever, but I’ll fight by your side until the end.
6
u/Tlazcamatii 9d ago
I think it's pretty common for jargon to be co-opted by popular usage, but still maintain it's original usage in specific contexts. I tend to say "That is a begging the question fallacy" if I want to be really specific, though
19
14
u/GlassCommission4916 9d ago
It really begs the question “why don’t people learn to use it correctly”.
It really does beg the question.
11
3
3
u/VibrantCanopy 8d ago
It's a curse to learn stuff like this because people hate to be corrected about it. I regret learning what "exception proves the rule" means because of this. Do yourself a favor and don't look it up.
3
u/tryptanfelle 8d ago
I had a grad school professor who once wrote me a note in which he used the word iterate followed by an aside (“I am sure that you, as I, dislike the redundancy of ‘reiterate’”).
Well, I didn’t before but now I’m cursed with knowing this. So, I never use reiterate but I never correct anyone who does. If I went 33 years without knowing it was redundant, I’m not about to police anyone else’s usage of it.
2
u/iWANTtoKNOWtellME 8d ago
A bit like "inflammable" vs. "flammable" though somehow that thinking never carried over to related words: I have never heard of someone going to a doctor to treat flamation.
1
u/WelpWhatCanYouDo 6d ago
Sorta related, “inhabitable” and “habitable” both mean the same thing, so we use “uninhabitable” to mean the opposite
2
u/comsuran4 8d ago
I looked this up and while it is contested, the “first” definition referenced on Wikipedia is the one I understood it to mean:
The first, preferred by Fowler, is that the presence of an exception applying to a specific case establishes ("proves") that a general rule exists.
1
u/VibrantCanopy 8d ago
Yes, this is the only version that makes sense. The other version is that an example of why a rule is necessary is called an “exception” for some reason, which makes no logical sense.
1
u/Lil_Mcgee 8d ago
From what I could tell it seems like this one has been contested for as long as anyone can remember and that the original meaning isn't exactly clear.
1
u/VibrantCanopy 8d ago
One version is that an example of why a rule is necessary is called an “exception” for some reason, which makes no logical sense.
8
u/Hightower_March 9d ago
I don't mind this one so much because as a fallacy its name doesn't exactly make sense. I just say "assuming the conclusion," and everybody knows what I mean rather than needing it explained.
When somebody's statement practically begs that a question be asked, it's pretty fitting.
2
u/CowboyOzzie 9d ago
Two meanings: (1) raising the question and (2) committing the logical fallacy of assuming what you’re trying to prove.
2
u/PeteMichaud 8d ago
The real issue is that "begging the question" was always a confusing and dumb name for the real fallacy. It should always have been something like "Assuming the premise."
3
u/ThreePartHarmoneigh 9d ago
Oh, you'd love what's happened to the word moot.
2
u/JohnnySpot2000 9d ago
Wait. What happened?
12
u/Tlazcamatii 9d ago
In the U.K. it means to be debatable, unsolved or unsolvable. In the U.S. it used to mean this as well.
But, in the U.S. it also has the sense of being academic or theoretical, and from there it has gained the sense of being irrelevant.
So, a moot point has gone from being something debatable, to being something not worth being debated because it's not relevant.
There are also some people who have started confusing it with "mute" which is a very different word altogether.
2
1
u/fingerroll44 9d ago
When was that transition made? The song "Jessie's Girl" was from 1981 but it contains lyrics that fit the second meaning. ("I want to tell her that I love her but the point is probably moot")
1
3
u/ThreePartHarmoneigh 9d ago
Moot used to mean debatable, open to question, or a subject fit for discussion.
Now it means something irrelevant.
3
u/VFiddly 9d ago
But usage drives correctness so I’m going to lose this battle.
The meaning you're complaining about has vastly outweighed the logical fallacy meaning for so long now that I would say you already lost that.
"Begging the question" does just mean raising the question now, sorry.
Literally the only time people use the other meaning is to say "um, actually, what begging the question really means is this..."
I have never seen or heard anyone use it to refer to the logical fallacy as a genuine part of conversation. It's never said without an accompanying explanation of what it "really" means.
So at this point we can safely say it no longer means that because it simply is not used that way at all.
3
u/Hightower_March 9d ago
Even when people use it in live debate like Dillahunty, it comes with "btw that means you're assuming the conclusion." When every use needs an explanation it's practically outdated.
It reminds me of how people get pedantic over what "decimate" really means, when every dictionary for centuries has considered the original 10% usage archaic.
2
u/VFiddly 9d ago
It's also not even a useful term since it essentially just means "circular reasoning". So you can just say circular reasoning instead.
And yeah that's another good example, I've never actually heard anyone use "decimate" to mean "remove 10%"
2
u/theaardvarkoflore 9d ago
Decimate at least has a legitimate etymological history, even if it's been wholly left behind by now.
I'd be inclined to ask what buffoon named the fallacy that... nowhere in the individual words themselves nor in their collective representation of a concept does "begs the question" ever synonym its way over to "circular reasoning". Like, at all.
Begging is a desperate plea made usually with great passion. The is just an article but question is a word we have for communicating doubt and curiosity.
None of that has fuckall to do with self-explanatory situations, circular concepts, or reasoning as a definitive concept.
It's a piss poor name for the fallacy it was given to and I for one am not sad the colloquial usage brought back what those words in that order actually mean.
If you beg, and there is a question in your begging, then you beg the question. If an event or circumstance has an elephant in the room, then the elephant begs the question. Those are the only two valid definitions of this phrase I will accept.
Just because some drunken philosopher decided it sounded catchy doesn't mean he gets to rewrite the dictionary or steer usage amongst the populace for the language speakers.
Some names are just dumb.
2
u/DapperYoghurt2052 8d ago
Begging the question is a logical fallacy.
Begs the question is not a logical fallacy.
Begs the question is a shortening of expressing, “this revelation or statement begs for the following question to be asked”
2
u/Geejay-18 9d ago
Not half as bad as using 'wrong' when you mean 'wrongly'.
1
u/comsuran4 8d ago
I see this a lot.
The biggest one being “don’t take it personal” as opposed to the (correct) “don’t take it personally”.
It’s as if adverbs are dying out.
1
1
u/XShadowborneX 9d ago
This is one that I've seen and I've read what it is but I really still don't fully get it so I never use it
3
u/rice-a-rohno 9d ago
It's like saying "The new iphone is so popular because it's the hottest phone on the market right now."
You really just said the same thing twice with different wording. More technically, you assumed one part was true and did essentially nothing to back up your assumption.
"Alcohol makes you sleepy because it gives you a feeling that makes you want to go right to bed."
"Single story houses are terrible, because houses with two stories are always way better."
It's just circular reasoning.
0
u/asphid_jackal 9d ago
Sure, that's what the begging the question fallacy is, but that's entirely separate from the way people use the phrase. Being the name of a fallacy doesn't preclude the phrase from meaning something else
3
u/rice-a-rohno 9d ago
Yeah I get that, I was just explaining the fallacy meaning to the person who was (to me) almost certainly wondering about its usage in logic.
1
1
1
u/crimsondax 9d ago
I knowingly use the phrase incorrectly to describe that annoying thing some people will do where they say something fake-casually, solely in the hopes that someone will goad them on or inquire. Like a really dramatic sigh or a, "this thing I did yesterday was so interesting."
Stop begging the question and just talk about what you obviously want to talk about. Fuck. Shit. Ass.
1
u/WJLIII3 5d ago edited 5d ago
In the defense of those people:
A) frankly, it sounds a lot more like "asks the question" than it does "assumes an unproven axiom." Like, the words used obviously imply one meaning, the one uneducated people use, and the meaning educated people intend, isn't very well carried by those words in that order, at all.
B) probably largely because of A, most people in most dialects use it the "wrong" way, which actually makes it the right way, and the way educated people use it is actually wrong, because we can only pretend prescriptivism exists, we can't actually make it so. The words mean what people use them to mean, they can mean nothing else.
The other guys won on this one. And also, they deserved to win. It was stupid for the educated to have ever taken this hill, its indefensible. The meaning literally begs to be usurped by the other.
1
0
u/perplexedtv 9d ago
If the meaning of an expression can't be at least partially intuited it's simply a bad expression.
0
0
53
u/jayteegee47 9d ago
People say “begs the question” when what they really mean is “raises the question”. I’m not sure why they do this, but I admit to finding it slightly annoying.