What is the informal fallacy “Begging the Question” in layman’s terms?
In: 95
Circular logic, “it’s good because it’s right.” Note that “begging” here is being used to mean “avoiding,” rather than “asking for.” That’s an older definition of the word, and this phrase is the last common example of it in the English language, which is fun.
EDIT: This is actually not true! Should have looked into it before posting. Turns out it’s because of an anonymous 16th century translator who chose to translate Aristotle’s line “petitio principii” as “beg the question.” You can kind of see the connection: “petitio” is obviously where we get “petition,” and in-context Aristotle was using it to mean asking for something that wasn’t earned (i.e., asking for an assumption or reasoning in their argument without spelling it out). Thus, it makes reasonable sense to a translator to turn “petition” used in this way into “beg,” and then this unknown translator happily went off and died leaving us with 500 years of mild etymological weirdness.
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