# Help Me With This Rule Of Literature, Dammit! **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 23, 2004, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747 "2004-06-23T02:58:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/1 "2004-06-23T02:58:02Z")
Here is the question: “Is Inquisitor still here?” Here is the answer: “Who wants to know?” Hell, I **know** it has a name. I just can’t think of it right now! Thanks Q ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/2 "2004-06-23T17:10:43Z")
The term would be “ **avoiding the question** ” If you’re looking for a fancy Latin/Greek term, I don’t think there is one, either as a form of [logical fallacy](http://www.iep.utm.edu/f/fallacies.htm) or as a style of [rhetoric](http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/). ---
**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/3 "2004-06-23T22:56:16Z")
“Answering the question with another question”? ---
**Author:** ![Lush\_Jinks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Lush\_Jinks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lush_Jinks)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2004, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/4 "2004-06-23T23:04:35Z")
> [@TJdude825](#): > > “Answering the question with another question”? This makes me wonder: why do some people seem to want every possible combination of events that can happen in the world to all be neatly describable by a single word? “Answering a question with a question” seems like a perfectly reasonable response to the OP. If you want some fancy one-word response that 95% of well-educated people would not be familiar with, well, make your own word for it and see if you can get anyone to use it. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/5 "2004-06-25T06:26:36Z")
I really thought it had a name. Okay, since y’all say it _doesn’t_, I’m going to call it a _geflern_. A _geflern_ is a literary device intended to answer a question with a question that may or may _not_ answer the original question exactly. See what happens when you turn the ignorant loose to invent new literary terms? 😃 Y’all are stuck with it now! Thanks! Quasi ---
**Author:** ![johncole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5f9b8f/32.png) [@johncole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johncole)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2004, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/6 "2004-06-25T23:44:17Z")
In certain circumstances (between teacher and pupil, for example) it is called the “Socratic method”. ---
**Author:** ![barbitu8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@barbitu8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/barbitu8)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2004, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/7 "2004-06-26T00:27:09Z")
> [@johncole](#): > > In certain circumstances (between teacher and pupil, for example) it is called the “Socratic method”. :dubious: Socrates’ method was to ask questions of the “learned” and use their answers to continue the questioning, showing that these “learned” answers were false. This, in no small part, led to his drinking the hemlock juice. We would now call this \* reductio ad absurdum\* or some such similar Latin phrase. ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/8 "2004-06-27T00:23:05Z")
> [@johncole](#): > > In certain circumstances (between teacher and pupil, for example) it is called the “Socratic method”. Oh. Yeah, _right_! Drag some dead-ass philosopher’s name into it, why dontcha? [This is just satire, folks… stay with me on this :)] I _gave_ y’all several _days_ to come up with an answer, and some very “learned” people on SDMB told me (in essence) that they didn’t know what I was talking about, and if I was so sure it was a literary “device” (and I maintain that it _is_), I should give it my _own_ name. It’s a _ **Geflern** _, dammit! What? I can’t have an original idea just because I’m ignorant? You gotta “name-drop” poor old Socrateses name into this to give me my post _validity_? Okay, I’ll compromise. It’s a _Socratic Geflern_ when used in literature. When used in ordinary teaching/student situations, you can have your _Socratic Method_, how’s that? [/satire] 😃 Quasi ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/9 "2004-06-27T02:06:00Z")
Did you ever read _Rosencrantz and Gilderstern Are Dead_? It’s _Hamlet_ told from two minor characters’ point of view. They made a game out of _geflern_. ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/10 "2004-06-27T02:07:26Z")
Seriously. It’s a [real](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802132758/qid=1088301979/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/103-8089456-7842225) book. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/11 "2004-06-27T02:37:44Z")
Not to mention a good movie. I’ve never read the book. Am I missing out? ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/12 "2004-06-27T03:04:52Z")
It was required reading in high school, 11th grade. So, I read it because I had to, not because I wanted to. I think there was something in there about sucking toes, and we speculated R&G might be gay. It was a long time ago. ---
**Author:** ![Lush\_Jinks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Lush\_Jinks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lush_Jinks)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/13 "2004-06-27T05:08:22Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Not to mention a good movie. I’ve never read the book. Am I missing out? It’s a play, not a book, and it’s a great one if you dig that kind of humor. If you liked _R & G are Dead_, I also highly recommend _[Waiting for Godot](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0802130348/qid=1088312732/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/104-0676525-1091904?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)_ by Samuel Beckett. Both are essentially nihilistic comedies, and they make use of the “Socratic Geflern” profusely. ---
**Author:** ![Entropy\_at\_Work](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Entropy\_at\_Work](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Entropy_at_Work)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/14 "2004-06-27T05:48:28Z")
This device is petitio principii, or 'begging the question. > **[Begging the question](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question)** > > In classical rhetoric and logic, begging the question or assuming the conclusion (Latin: petitio principii) is an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion, instead of supporting it. > For example, the statement "Green is the best color because it is the greenest of all colors" claims that the color green is the best because it is the greenest—which it presupposes is the best. > It is a type of circular reasoning: an argument that requires that th... Of course, the device we’re all using right now is periphrasis: talking around the answer. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Quasimodem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Quasimodem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quasimodem)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/15 "2004-06-27T05:52:45Z")
So why don’t we start our own **Geflern** thread over in MPSIMS? 😃 I think the mods are seriosuly thinking of kicking this one over there anyway, y’all. Oh and thanks for the recommendations. Didn’t the old Kung Fu series also make liberal use of this? Wonder what _they_ called it? 😉 Q ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/16 "2004-06-27T07:31:22Z")
> [@barbitu8](#): > > Socrates’ method was to ask questions of the “learned” and use their answers to continue the questioning, showing that these “learned” answers were false. This, in no small part, led to his drinking the hemlock juice. We would now call this reductio ad absurdum or some such similar Latin phrase. Although the Socratic method is characterized by asking questions, this description is not what is generally meant by the term. The most famous example does not involve questioning a “learned” person but is Socrates’ skillful line of questioning, in the _Meno_, to guide an unlearned slave to prove a mathematical proposition. Thus the Socratic method is guiding a student to find the truth “on his own” by asking the right questions. So it was not use of the Socratic method _per se_ that led to Socrates’ trial and conviction, but the (unjustified) accusation that he had “corrupted the youth” of Athens. (In fact, he had political enemies.) And all of this has nothing whatsoever to do with _reductio ad absurdum_, which is the mathematical process of assuming the opposite of what you want to prove, and then showing that that assumption leads to a logical impossibility, hence what you wanted to prove must be true. > [@Entropy at Work](#): > > This device is petitio principii, or 'begging the question. > > [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging\_the\_question](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question) **Entropy** , did you even read the entry in your link? I don’t see what makes you think the questions in the OP are an example of begging the question. To the OP: could the term you’re seeking be _non sequitur_? That is, a reply that bears no relation to the previous statement. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/17 "2004-06-27T07:49:07Z")
**Entropy at Work** : > [@](#): > > This device is petitio principii, or 'begging the question. I don’t think the example posted by the OP would constitute _petitio principii_. 'Tis always possible that I’m the one misconstruing the concept, but I think _petitio principii_ is more like this: Example A: I go for a ride in the country and after a while I smell the smell that indicates that some unfortunate driver has run over a skunk. I roll up the window while wrinkling my nose and I exclaim, “No wonder they call them skunks!” OK, that’s not a pure form because it isn’t making an actual logical claim, but it’s implicit in there. Example B: I get into a Great Debate on the subject of involuntary psychiatric treatment, and someone argues that people with a psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenia need to take psychiatric medication, and if they won’t take it voluntarily they need to be forced to do so. I post a response asking on what basis this need has been determined, pointing out that I’ve received that diagnosis myself and I don’t take psych meds and seem to be doing OK. The other person posts back that I should be forced to take psych meds because I’m a schizophrenic, which is in and of itself the reason I need to take psych meds, which is that schizophrenics are people who need to take psych meds, and if I don’t need to take psych meds that means I’ve been misdiagnosed because schizophrenics need to take psych meds. So I post the rejoinder that this is begging the question. That one is close to pure form. ‘Schizophrenics need to take psych meds because they are schizophrenics, and schizophrenics are people who need to take psych meds’. Incorporated along with it in there is a special case called _No True Scotsman_, namely the part that says ‘Schizophrenics need to take psych meds, so if you say you’re a schizophrenic but you don’t need to take psych meds, well then you aren’t a true schizophrenic because real schizophrenics need to take their psych meds’. Example C: A silly one from the realm of religious studies — a student writes that Jesus of Nazareth was taken to be killed at the place known as Golgotha, the place of the skull, which was given its name by the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was put to his death at that place. Example D: Here’s one you’ll hear people putting forth, in all seriousness, another religious one — 'We know the Bible to be the infallible word of God, it says so in the Bible, and since the Bible is infallible that means it has to be so" Example F: In social sciences research design, _petitio principii_ often makes an apearance when playing with the regression analysis to see how controlling for one variable in the equation washes out the impact of another variable that previously looked like it was explaining a lot of the observed behavior. Problem is with social science variables is that they are often heavily interknitted with others, to the point that when you control for that variable x you’ve washed out the impact of variable y because you’ve controlled for variable y in the process of controlling for x, doing your study at this point of how your data looks when you only compare subjects with identical variable y values (because they are so closely bolted onto variable x values), and after having erased the effect of y by controlling for x you find that y makes no difference. Umm, well, yes, it certainly doesn’t if we’ve made sure we never compare subjects that differ according to variable y. This kind of study can often be a begging of questions. Two intervowen concepts, let’s say education level and income levels, are available as data and have been coded for. Any time you’re studying the effects of either of them on an outcome, if you toss the other in as a control variable it’s going to wash out the “explanatory power” of the other when you do regression. Geeky arguments in the hallways: “Don’t you be controlling for that, you’re controlling my main player here right off the screen, controlling him to death” Because the variables are, theoretically, supposed to be discrete and separate phenomenae, but often they are nothing of the sort, and are actually different manifestations of the same thing. 'Gee, surprisingly enough it looks like the educational courses that students from lower economic classes were offered and had recommended to them was about equal to those suggested for and made available to students from well-established economically successful families. At first the data made it look like they weren’t getting equal access to planning resources and were not steered towards towards the advanced courses we’re studying, but then when we thought to control for income levels and include that in our regression formulas, we found it doesn’t have much to do with it after all. The students from the lower economic classes who personally have a low income level were given access to those classes about the same as the students from successful families who personally have a low income level. And the students from the lower economic classes who had an impessive personal income sufficient to take whatever they wanted to were found to be taking those classes in about as high a percent as the students from well-off families who had their own substantial personal income. I think a lot of these kinds of studies get to beg the question as a consequence of how they operationalize their variables. Poor people spend as effectively as rich people if you control for how much money they’ve got in their pockets, but to most of us the money you got in your pockets is part of the definition of “are you poor or not”, so if you control for that in that fashion you’re just begging the question. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/18 "2004-06-27T07:51:34Z")
> [@Quasimodem](#): > > Here is the question: > > “Is Inquisitor still here?” Noone expects the Spanish Inquisition! ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/19 "2004-06-27T10:19:54Z")
> [@commasense](#): > > So it was not use of the Socratic method _per se_ that led to Socrates’ trial and conviction, but the (unjustified) accusation that he had “corrupted the youth” of Athens. (In fact, he had political enemies.) Not entirely unjustified. He did teach Critas and Alcibades, and we both know how they turned out, and he did have a lot of bad stuff to say about the government of Athens. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2004, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747/20 "2004-06-27T13:38:09Z")
> [@Quasimodem](#): > > Here is the question: > > “Is Inquisitor still here?” > > Here is the answer: > > “Who wants to know?” > > Hell, I **know** it has a name. I just can’t think of it right now! > > Thanks > > Q Correction to my earlier reply, by some diligent research (ie asking the right people) I have found the word [anteisagoge](http://www.straightistheway.com/bibles/figureofspeech.html) otherwise known as counter-question. Its not surprising you didn’t remember it. Use it in casual conversation and 99.5% of people won’t understand you. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-with-this-rule-of-literature-dammit/251747.md?page=2)