Critical Thinking #16: Begging the Question

[@pandabear2cute4u2]

Who else watched all the videos in one sitting?

[@loupurvis3148]

Edward Nagao-Itano Totally. Am about to rewatch them all and take notes. My right wing mum isn’t gonna know what hit her...😂

[@saltylungs]

@@loupurvis3148 so what hit her???

[@loupurvis3148]

@@saltylungs Holy random comment from three years ago, Batman. 😂

[@r4fide]

Great video, this series is really good.

[@tapolna]

2:41 you misspelled "therefore"

[@johnnypetersen94]

Gee, I wonder what David had in mind with the thousand-year-old book example? *cough* ... *bible* ... *cough*

[@jesse_cole]

That one's closer to 2,000 years old. He was clearly referring to Confessio Theologica, by John of Fecamp.

[@johnnypetersen94]

Jesse Cole You could be correct. The word *Theologica* - a mash-up of the words *theology* and *logic* - is *begging the question* all by itself.

[@Ou8y2k2]

~1900-2700 years old from Old to New. I'm an enternet expurt.

[@briseboy]

@@johnnypetersen94 theologica passes the Greek words for deities and word meaning discourse or speech through Latin. Do not translate it to suit your biases, as your own language did not exist at that tie. Logia merely means speech , words , and did not at that time mean pretension to accuracy, as does the word logic now. Rhetoric is the use of words in the attempt to create agreement. As you have seen, logic is a form of rhetoric, subject to distortion in many ways. It has not so far been successful in swaying any dogmatically held ideations, or the fictional narratives we can create from limited attention and heuristic sampling of sensory reality. Humans are inherently seeking relative social status, or at least the appearance thereof. The species is quite vile in its raw attempts at deception, really no less so than any other chimpanzee flinging feces. Some human communities have sought to limit this feces-flinging, but the USA and Twitter imagine great profit from the exercise.

[@Alfahoena]

Tank you, David Pakman.

[@sanmigueltv]

Circular Reasoning is begging the question. I never realized that. I hear this one a lot.

[@doloresrintoul99]

That clears it up for me. Thanks. I've usually heard the phrase used incorrectly.

[@PastPresented]

Funnily enough, no you haven't. This is a situation where "alternative facts" really do exist. The use in logic of the phrase "begging the question" is itself due to an incorrect translation of the Latin phrase "petitio principii". Although "petitio" can be translated as "begging" its accurate translations in this phrase would be less snappy, such as "having recourse to"; similarly the translation of "principii" should really be expanded to something like "the topic under discussion". Using the English phrase "begging the question" in the sense of "making it needful for the following question to be asked" is not wrong, just inconvenient in situations where the mistranslated-Latin sense might be relevant.

[@doloresrintoul99]

You might be correct about something being lost in the translation of "petitio principii" - but it would not up to David (even if he knew & agreed with your argument) to be a rigid purist about the Latin meaning while "begging the question" and "petitio principii" are universally considered to be synonymous with one another. I could find no evidence of anyone trying to agitate for your position - that is, to have the long-accepted definitions of "begging the question" adjusted or expanded to accommodate a more direct or "accurate" (according to you) translation from Latin of the word "petitio". If I am wrong and you know of an expert source for your argument, I'd be happy to know of it; in the meantime, I can't imagine who'd go about changing the meaning of a term used and taught for millennia, or how they would do it.

[@PastPresented]

My point was simply that the common modern usage of the phrase "That begs the question ..." is not in any reasonable sense wrong, whereas the formally accepted (but really not very long-established, when compared with the age of the concept represented by the Latin) usage *is* wrong in one very essential respect. It can actually be seen as an example of itself: it has the sense of "petitio principii" solely because the people who use it in that way say it has the sense of "petitio principii".

[@TheBardbarians]

That was terrible. The movie, "Kate and Leopold" has the perfect counter to that ghost argument: "I'm the dog who saw a rainbow." Or I'll make an even better example; how do you explain color to someone who was born blind? What if you are the only sighted person in an entire community of blind people?

[@sunkcostfallacy2738]

This should be standard curriculum for high school students. Every high school students should be able to understand logic. It changes your entire view of the world. I'm not a particularly intelligent person I don't think, but because I understand the basics of logic, I can apply it in my daily life, and it is a beautiful thing being able to sus out bullshit and view the world in as objective as a way as I can. You don't have to be some 400 IQ 5 dimensional chess playing genius to wrap your mind around this stuff. It's equal parts simple, and life changing. And once you understand logic, the true lines of what you do and do not understand become clear to you. It's an amazing thing.

[@asmaeazizi5457]

This was so helpful thank u!

[@ghostfires]

In philosophy, begging the question is known as petition of principle, and it's not necessarily a fallacy. But yeah, the misuse of 'beg the question' in everyday speech is annoying.

[@bigmacintosh3106]

The first example presented isn't begging the question. An example of begging the question in that situation would be I believe ghosts exist because ghosts do exist. Presenting subjective evidence isn't begging the question, it's just an unconvincing argument. Stating that someone believes something exist, and the statement is that something does exist are two different things. And these two arguments cannot support each other. That's what makes it a fallacy. The argument you presented was an appeal to authority fallacy which I think you may have committed because you believe a straw man fallacy by assuming that any argument presented from that standpoint would inevitably lead to a example of begging the question fallacy

[@bigmacintosh3106]

You are second example of is perfect though

[@ericsarnoski6278]

The devil made me do it !

[@briseboy]

Recursive logic. Misattribution - DNA made you, your mother made you, the Mafia made you. Nike made you do it.

[@petitio_principii]

May be my favorite fallacy.

[@briseboy]

Please sir, may I have a question?

[@roonski88]

Please question, may I have a sir?

[@ultearmilkojohn1145]

Therfore

[@turboking95]

Eh? First? Coolio.

[@nihilistnick5094]

This episode was brought to you by the dictionary... wouldve been easier

[@mistert800]

None of the dictionary definitions I've seen have taken three minutes to read through or provide as much detail as this.

[@nihilistnick5094]

True just a shorter episode then most of them since it was very straight foward

[@Jugivadi]

I see. I'm going describe "begs the question." Sooo, oh what the hell just go look in the dictionary. You should think before you comment, would've been a lot smarter.

[@mistert800]

chill dude, he changed his mind

[@tytsucksswanballs1108]

So your goal is to show everyone all of the logical fallacies you use?

[@Starcrash6984]

@Mrs. Parkinsons Well... yes. You should learn what the fallacies are so you can spot them no matter who is using them. If David uses a fallacy, I'm sure he'd also like to know so he can improve his argument to one that doesn't contain a fallacy. But generally they're employed by people who don't know any better. I hope you're learning something from the videos so that you won't be one of those people.

[@WestOfEarth]

Mrs. Parkinsons...the irony of your use of a rhetorical fallacy in an attempt to prove David uses fallacies.

[@tytsucksswanballs1108]

David uses fallacies because David uses fallacies.

[@tytsucksswanballs1108]

Dude, if David was a good guy or an honest guy I wouldn't be on his ass. The fact that David is not a good guy or an honest guy is the reason I am on his ass.

[@WestOfEarth]

Two more rhetorical fallacies in two posts. Nice work. Efficient work. Here's a hint on how to change your superfluous opinion to a meaningful one. Give evidence of David using fallacies. And I don't mean the occasional use...none of us are perfect. Show evidence of habitual, or repetitive use. Your second fallacy above, David has already covered. I'll leave it as an exercise for you to figure out which one you're using. But in addition to this, again you supply no evidence. For example. Donald J. Trump is a serial liar. He claimed he had the largest inaugural audience ever, prove false by comparison photos. He recently claimed the US Post Office looses money dealing with Amazon, when in fact the company accounts for $7 billion in positive revenue out of its total $19 billion. USPS is, however loosing money, but not because of Amazon. So Mrs. Parkinsons, do you see what I did here? I supplied evidence in proof of my statement that Trump is a serial liar. I could go on, and on, and on. You stating something about David doesn't make it true.