Location
Brock University
Document Type
Paper
Start Date
15-5-1997 9:00 AM
End Date
17-5-1997 5:00 PM
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to provide an account of the fallaciousness of begging the question without thereby indicting as fallacious all otherwise acceptable deductively valid reasoning. The solution that we suggest exploits the intuition that all good arguments are weakly circular. The fallaciousness of begging the question is not that the reasoning is circular simpliciter. Rather, begging the question is a fallacy because the conclusion relies on an undischarged assumption that the audience cannot accept without further argumentation. In the face of such an argument the arguer might just as well have merely asserted the conclusion.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Response to Submission
Lawrence H. Powers, Commentary on Edwards
Reader's Reactions
Lawrence H. Powers, Commentary on Edwards (May 1997)
Included in
Pathological Circularity: Deductive Validity and a Contextual Account of the Fallacy of Begging the Question
Brock University
The purpose of this study is to provide an account of the fallaciousness of begging the question without thereby indicting as fallacious all otherwise acceptable deductively valid reasoning. The solution that we suggest exploits the intuition that all good arguments are weakly circular. The fallaciousness of begging the question is not that the reasoning is circular simpliciter. Rather, begging the question is a fallacy because the conclusion relies on an undischarged assumption that the audience cannot accept without further argumentation. In the face of such an argument the arguer might just as well have merely asserted the conclusion.
