“Beg the question” is the darling phrase of the moment. There was a time you’d never hear it outside of debating societies and cocktail parties attended by Dick Cavett or George Plimpton. Ever.
But then about a year ago it began to creep into the lingo of the masses. I hear it in commercials and newscasts and business chitchat at least once a day. Great, I thought, I like it when obscure and creeky old turns-of-phrase get dusted off for contemporary use.
Thing is, the original meaning of the phrase is non-intuitive, while the ‘popular’ meaning is more intuitive. At least, that’s how it looks to me.
I’ve never been able to understand how ‘begging the question’ refers to “taking for granted or assuming the thing that you are setting out to prove.” (Link) It’s an old form of the word, I presume, preserved only in that one idiom.
For what it’s worth, I do understand the difference, and attempt to use ‘raise the question’ rather than beg, it doesn’t really bother me when others use it. It does sound natural in that usage, to me.
I fear we’ve long since reached the point where the “wrong” usage has become the “right” usage. It seems inevitable given the naturalness of the “wrong” interpretation. Which begs the question ( ), what phrase are we going to use for what used to be the proper usage of “to beg the question”? “You, sir, have assumed the answer to the question you purport to be raising!” I don’t think it will fly.
A circular argument is only a special case of the begged question. A begged question is one in which, in the general case, the conclusion is at least as questionable as the assumptions. It quite literally begs the question.
A pet hate of mine too. It’s like “disinterested” being used as a synonym for “uninterested”. Or “refute” used to mean “reject, deny” which have plenty of perfectly adequate synonyms.
Ah well, at least we know differently.
Next up: “It’s the exception that proves the rule”. :rolleyes:
O-oh, the people I’ve tried explaining this to who just won’t believe me.
“This really begs the question - what is the right thing to do?”
“Oh no, actually ‘begs the question’ doesn’t mean that, it means to improperly take for gra-”
“Oh, yes it does. It means it begs the question, get it?”
“Gah.”
Yah. I’m there also, Grasshopper (the actual poster’s name, not a Kung Fu reference). I use it improperly-properly also. Which begs the question, gah!
If there is an unstated premise just waiting to be pounced on, I think the phrase is properly used. It is not wrong to simply phrase it as an actual question.
I can kind of see how begging is involved in the fallacy, but ‘begging the question’ strikes me as strange. I could see ‘begging for the assumption’ as in asking people to assume the same things you’re assuming, but ‘begging the question’ doesn’t seem to explain the concept. Asking people to assume the same question you’re assuming?
This is, I presume, why people have shifted to using it as ‘raises the question’. I’m sure someone here can explain why begging the question is called just that, but on the surface, it makes eminently more sense to use it in the sense of raising the question.
And while it’s the same number of syllables, ‘beg’ is definitely easier to say than ‘raise’, makes the same amount of sense to most people, and captures the intent well. So it’s not too surprising most people will go for that.
Wow, have I been using it wrong all this time? Here’s my understanding of the usage of the phrase:
(Mother looks in cookie jar, sees it is nearly empty, speaks to child)
"I put 5 cookies in here yesterday, today there’s only one in there. I didn’t take any. You say you didn’t take any, so that begs the question, ‘What happened to the other 4 cookies?’ "
Is this correct usage or not? The phrase “begs the question” has always meant to me that the situation is such that you cannot help but ask the question, being obviously in need of answering.
The irony, of course, is that while the OP is complaining about the misuse of the phrase “begging the question”, erislover committed the much more common error of misusing the word “literally”. While erislover’s meaning might have been clear, it is not literally true that a circular argument can beg for anything, since a circular argument is kinda, y’know, a verbal construct and not an animated creature with knees or a larynx or anything.
), what phrase are we going to use for what used to be the proper usage of “to beg the question”? “You, sir, have assumed the answer to the question you purport to be raising!” I don’t think it will fly.