Comments on: Can’t we just “raise” the question?

By: Brad K.

Brad K. — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 02:04:01 +0000

Digress. Could it be that Digress is used as the opposite of the phrase – not the grammatical usage,but the phrase, – beg the question?

That is, I could follow a trail of thought that went off topic from a conversation, then close that digression off with the phrase, “But I digress.”

Where I might interject a digression into an exposition with the (disingenuous) phrase, “but that begs the question of . . .” and proceed to take the topic in another, divergent, train of thought.

Use, “I digress” to close off a digression, and “begs the question” to introduce a digression you propose to replace the previous topic.

Hmm.

By: Brad K.

Brad K. — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 19:40:22 +0000

Shane,

I am in a fair way to believing that the phrase, the literal words, when used in a communication, means precisely, “I am going to change the topic slightly.”

The figure of speech where the construct is described as begging the question, but the phrase isn’t used, is the part that actually begs the question.

By: Shane

Shane — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:33:58 +0000

The writer is correct, it is a technical term of logic. Using “begs the question” to mean “raises the question” should grate on the ears of anybody who studied basic philosophy the same way that using “evolution” to mean “change” bothers anybody who has studied basic biology.

The following argument is an example of petitio principii or begs the question:
1. The Bible is the word of God.
2. God speaks the truth.
3. The Bible says God exists.
Therefore,
4. God exists.

1-3 don’t offer any evidence for 4 because they already assume 4. The argument begs the question.

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:46:33 +0000

Well, “beg the question” is a translation of the Latin “petitio principii”; a very bad translation, IMO…it uses the word “question” in a non-standard way (”argument” would be better), and the phrase is not otherwise meaningless in English — i.e., the usage you’re saying is wrong is much closer to the natural meaning of the English words than the “correct” meaning, so it’s hardly surprising that people would interpret it that way (though none of the examples you quote use it in a sensible way). “Principii”, translating Aristotle’s “en archei”, means “at the beginning”; a better English translation (and one that doesn’t have any obvious meaning already) would be “beg the beginning” (the Greek actually does include the meaning “beg”, unlike the Latin), though the “circular argument” is more meaningful. I can’t see the point of translating it, though; other terms of art in logic, such as “ad hominem”, “modus ponens”, etc., are used in Latin; why does this one (alone?) need a translation?

By: Nohbody

Nohbody — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 19:43:46 +0000

This is a great point, and something I had been wondering about. Unfortunately, begging the question has entered the lexicon – and so it is probably valid when writing dialog.

But this is something to look out for in article writing.