From: David Buchanan (DBuchanan@ClassicalRadio.org)
Date: Sun Jan 19 2003 - 19:51:38 GMT
Matt, Rick and y'all:
> DMB had said:
> To beg a question is simply to avoid it. To beg an issue is a failure to
> address it. Its not any more complicated than that.
Rick replied:
Actually David, it is more complicated than that. To 'beg the question' is
to employ a premise in an argument which assumes the truth of the argument's
conclusion.
DMB comes back:
Whaaaa? The example in the link you provided only shows exactly what I said,
an argument that avoids addressing the issue at hand. Just because the
unexamined assumption is asserted as a premise doesn't change the fact that
the error consists in a failure to address it. And this is only one specific
way to beg a question. There are other ways to commit this error too, but
the thing they all have in common is the circumventing the question at hand.
For example, as I write this there is a news program on TV with a bunch of
talking heads. The question on the table is the validity of the views of the
anti-war protesters that took to the streets in such huge numbers yesterday.
One of the pundits has just remarked that the people involved are "just a
bunch of pachouli soap buying nut jobs". Since the issue is the validity of
their views and not their sanity or soap choices, he has begged the
question. (Not to mention the fact that his comments were mean spirited,
insulting, dismissive and irrelevant.)
Anyway, I don't think this is a very important issue. My only point was that
it is unhelpful to make things more complicated than they need to be. The
meaning of the word "beg" is in the dictionary for anyone to see and we need
not resort to philosophy books to understand what this error looks like.
Thanks for your time,
DMB
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