Talk:Begging the question

message: I agree with 92.22.149.83's 12/9/20 removal of the bad example about "Hero Man". The problem is that it is germane to the paragraph (and Herrick quote) following it, which made no sense after this less than ideal example was removed and not replaced with a better one. And I find that following paragraph quite helpful, and completely confusing the way it was left incorrectly referencing what was meant to be a valid counterexample to begging the question (and incidentally unnecessary in my opinion.) 
I just found and added what I think is a reasonable example to support the paragraph that follows it that is an example listed in Fallacies and Pitfalls of Language: The Language Trap. Came upon the exmaple via a nice ThoughtCo article on the subject. Jeff Axelrod (talk) 05:47, 29 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleted "Hero Man" example broke following paragraphs 

message: Rather than perpetuating the mistake, shouldn't this article be titled "assuming the initial point" with a note that it is often mistranslated as "begging the question"?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.120.146.26 (talk) 23:42, 10 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wrong Title 

message: This edit by another editor was reverted with the explanation "POV". Quite by coincidence, I made almost the same edit. The original edit was correct and should have stood. The "POV" comment is bizarre. Anyone with any powers of observation can be in no doubt that in everyday English "beg the question" is almost always used with the "incorrect" meaning. Most people have no knowledge of the "correct" meaning. 86.129.206.245 (talk) 01:49, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I think my experience is a bit different than yours, but really what is needed her is some source which says what you assert. Paul August ☎ 02:16, 5 September 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Strictly speaking, the misused form "beg the question" is grammatically incorrect, because in the intransitive form of "beg", it should be "beg for the question". The transitive form of "beg" has the target of begging as the object of the verb, e.g. "I beg you", "he begged the passer-by for help".24.69.25.223 (talk) 00:29, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: It being grammatically incorrect really has no bearing on the question at hand here, which is whether it is meaningful to deem as "incorrect" the most common usage of a phrase.172.98.135.43 (talk) 04:49, 9 February 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. The question seems best answered by examples of modern ("incorrect") usage, which I hear just about every day on news programs, juxtaposed to former usages in rhetoric and argumentation which were in fact correct by the understanding of those users. As far as the transitive form of the verb I agree that's true in the majority of cases but think that usage is more elastic: "I am thirsty. I beg water of you." You could argue that it is more proper to phrase it differently but this seems idiomatic enough, though a little old fashioned. The question of the correctness of the use is really overshadowed by the obvious need in today's world for the modern meaning.  Blueistrue (talk) 11:18, 14 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Incorrect" meaning 

message: About the only thing I get out of this article is that no-one can explain what "begging the question" actually means.  The examples are painfully unclear, the writing muddy, and the writers/editors of this article seem absolutely determined to expound on their arcane knowledge without ever getting to the point.
This article probably needs to be blown up and restarted from scratch.  At the very least, someone needs to come up with a simple, clear set of examples for what this phrase meant in its classic sense.  I mean, it sure beats me.  I read the article, and I still don't know.  No wonder the modern meaning is completely trouncing the older one -- even its defenders can't coherently explain it!   70.27.3.143 (talk) 03:09, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the article needs a better explanation and example of something that "begs the question" in the older, formal sense of the term.  I'm adding an example section to the top of the article. 209.165.166.193 (talk) 18:15, 23 January 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article begs the question: if I'm using "beg the question" incorrectly, how could I possibly tell? 

message: The example relating to paranormal activity is clearly erroneous in my opinion as the writer of the passage assumed that a person needs to assume that paranormal activity is real in order to conclude that he has experienced a paranormal activity (and therefore infer that paranormal activity is real), which is not the case. The writer stated "something must be real for it to be experienced" as a part of his explanation, but the statement is of nothing more than the reason that a person who thinks he has experienced paranormal activity can logically infer that paranormal activity is real.
I have decided to delete this example from the page.
134.87.133.113 (talk) 04:49, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Deleting the erroneous or at best very confusing example in the first paragraph 

message: How about "pretends to demonstrate what it already assumes"?96.248.101.32 (talk) 03:00, 5 March 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, not the original thoughts of editors. If you can find some RS that uses that language, then it can be incorporated into the article. -- Jibal (talk) 20:43, 4 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Short definition

message: This is confusing to read:
All birds that are black are ravens; therefore, all birds that are not ravens are not black.
We should also include an example which has a *true* premise:
Asia is the largest continent; therefore, Asia has the largest area of any continent.
To ensure we don't mislead the reader into thinking "begging the question" necessarily means false premise.
Mateen Ulhaq (talk) 12:08, 29 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad example 

message: "Begs the question" is always used incorrectly because nobody knows what it really means. 205.142.232.18 (talk) 21:34, 30 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  All I know 

message: The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion:
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You can see the reason for deletion at the file description page linked above. —Community Tech bot (talk) 10:06, 31 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for speedy deletion 

message: The description of the "classical" meaning is so confusig that now I wonder whether even Aristotle knew what he meant for it.The "modern" meaning is very clear, but mostly thanks to the example given. Why not give a couple of examples for the "classical" one too, before trying to explain the concept in abstract and full generality?  That is a basic teaching technique...To be most effective, the "question" of the example should be something that the reader has no way to know whether it is true or false; and the argument should have three or four steps.--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 10:16, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  The description of the "classical" meaning is confusing 

message: The ‘new’ usage does not arise from any fresh approach to rhetoric, but sheer ignorance, the misapplication of a precise term due to faulty understanding, or lazy learning. Like using ‘problematical’ to mean ‘difficult’ or ‘troublesome’. 
‘I’m like really hungry and thirsty and stuff but I like left my wallet at home, so, yeah, that like begs the question of how I’m like gonna pay to eat and stuff. So, yeaahhhhhhhh…’ is a current misusage couched in a knucklehead idiom.
--2001:44B8:3102:BB00:A533:3726:4EB6:E1FC (talk) 09:54, 6 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  New Usage 

message: I was under the impression that "begging the question", as commonly used, refers to someone making a statement which will prompt or require the response the speaker desires. For example, an employee being asked by a supervisor, "Doesn't our company have a great leadership team?" If the employee wants to remain employed, they are forced to say yes, if not to make a more flattering comment in praise of corporate leadership.
I grew up in the New York City metropolitan area, perhaps this was just a local idiom. I am curious if anyone else hs a similar interpretation. 2001:558:6045:B5:4025:7A2F:4E54:EC5C (talk) 21:46, 6 September 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: You might be thinking of a loaded or leading question. NicolinoChess31415926 (talk) 16:56, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Common use of this phrase 

message: In the second paragraph of the first section of the current version of the article, it is written that: 
'For example, the statement that "wool sweaters are superior to nylon jackets because wool sweaters have higher wool content" begs the question because this statement assumes that higher wool content implies being a superior material.' 
Let P denote the statement "wool sweaters are superior to nylon jackets because wool sweaters have higher wool content".
Let A denote the statement "for every wool sweater and every nylon jacket, if the wool sweater has higher wool content than the nylon jacket, then the wool sweater is superior to the nylon jacket". 
(Note that this statement is weaker than the analogous statement with "wool sweater" replaced by "sweater".)
Regarding the explanation for the example:
Let B denote the statement "this statement assumes that higher wool content implies being a superior material".
I fail to see why B is true – since in general the quality of the sweaters is not solely determined by how good the material is, we can only infer from P that A, rather than "higher wool content implies being a superior material", and so it cannot be inferred that the latter is assumed. B can only be true in some specific contexts, but since no specification of the context has been made for this statement, it would be weird to assume the context to be one of the particular contexts under which the statement is true, instead of a general context. Hence regardless of whether the statement is begging the question, the explanation in the article of why it is begging the question is problematic.
Regarding whether the statement begs the question:
I fail to see how it can be inferred that P begs the question, because begging the question is the problem of an attempted justification of a statement by another unjustified statement that implies the statement, and:
*It is not clear if A has not been (independently) justified in the context of concern (where we are limited to considering only a certain kind of wool sweaters and a certain kind of wool sweaters), since no context has been given. In order for this statement to be begging the question, the underlying context must not contain a justification of A, which would be the case if the context is given to be the general (i.e. unrestricted) context (since A is obviously not a part of general knowledge, and in fact most people would assume it to be in general false).
*A implies that "wool sweaters are superior to nylon jackets" if and only if e.g. one assumes that "wool sweaters" necessarily have higher wool content than "nylon jackets". I suppose this assumption is true by common sense for many people, but just from the names "wool sweaters" and "nylon jackets" I personally could not be completely certain that a "wool sweater" necessarily has more wool content than a "nylon jacket" of the same size, since I was considering the (epistemic) possibility that e.g. regardless of how much wool a jacket contains, as long as it contains [a certain sufficiently large mass depending on the size of the jacket] of nylon, it'd be called a "nylon jacket", in which case it is logically possible for it to contain a greater mass of wool than a "wool sweater" of the same size. In fact, note the ambiguity as to what is meant by "wool content" – does it refer to the percentage or the mass? If it refers to the mass, then it seems quite plausible that some really thick nylon jacket does contain more wool than a really thin wool sweater of the same size.
LRC.WK (talk) 07:21, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I've updated the example to use the same wording as the reference. Yannn11 22:52, 30 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problematic example about sweaters and jackets at the beginning 

message: "In modern usage it has come to refer to an argument in which the premises assume the conclusion without supporting it"
Can "supporting it" be replaced by another verb or extended and made more specific via "supporting it by. . ."?
In the following examples, the premises indeed seem to "support" or agree with the conclusions.  So for the layperson, can the definition be sharpened? Can counterexamples/fixes be added? 2600:1700:5B2C:A090:CD71:6CF5:98EB:EF87 (talk) 17:49, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: How about, "the premises do not provide independent grounds or reasons for accepting the conclusion"? Or, "the premises assume the conclusion without supporting it with independent grounds or reasons"? Dezaxa (talk) 12:47, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  A better definition? 

message: People so often misuse this phrase, I think it would be helpful to have a: "Not to be confused with 'raising/prompting the question' at the start. However, the existing notice is there because of a template, and there is no article for "raising the question" but there is this article's section on "vernacular." Consequently, I have two questions. 
1. Can "Vernacular" be changed to something more meaningful, e.g., "Vernacular for 'raising the question'".
2. Can we have something at the head of the article noting a "not to be confused with" the "raising the question", even if it's not using that template. -Reagle (talk) 20:20, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Raising the question and vernacular 

message: Examples are related to circular reasoning which is a related fallacy. 83.148.206.134 (talk) 17:15, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poor examples