What is the informal fallacy “Begging the Question” in layman’s terms?
In: 95
The phrase “beg the question” to refer to the logical fallacy is actually [a weird mistranslation](https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2290) of the writings of Aristotle, who originally described the fallacy. It really should have been translated as, “**assuming the conclusion**”.
tl;dr, because of linguistic quirks of the time, the word the first translations into Latin used for “assume” was also a word that in some contexts meant “beg”, and similarly the word they used for “argument” was the same word for “question”. Simple confusion and a long game of telephone eventually gave us the English phrase we have today.
If we go with “assuming the conclusion”, it’s a lot simpler to piece together what this fallacy actually is. It involves making a statement, like say:
> /r/explainlikeimfive is the best subreddit.
and then “proving” it with another statement that you’ve simply assumed to be true, like:
> /r/explainlikeimfive is the best subreddit because the threads here are very good.
*Are* the threads in ELI5 very good? Is that a proven fact? No, it’s just something you’ve assumed. You’ve assumed the conclusion of your argument. Or you’ve “begged the question”, as the janky translation would have it.
Some people try to justify the janky translation by saying you’re “begging listeners to call your assumption into question”. That’s not really where the phrase comes from at all, as I mentioned earlier. But if that helps you remember somehow, more power to you, I guess. IMO it just makes me even more confused. I’d rather stick to “assuming the conclusion”.
All of this of course has absolutely nothing to do with the common use of “that begs the question”, which people use as a way to say, “that really makes me wonder”. Which royally pisses off some pedants out there. Personally I just think this confusion is even more evidence that the translation of the fallacy name really was a mistake and we need to phase it out ASAP.
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