[Buddha-l] Re: flat earth?

[Richard Hayes]

Re: the phrase "begging the question," Curt avers:

> Yes - I appear to be guilty of using the phrase in the way it is 
> normally used, which appears to not be the way in which it was 
> originally used. Which begs the question of when does a "language 
> mistake" become just another example of "language change".

I beg to differ. In just about any textbook on critical thinking or
informal logic published during the past year you will find that
"begging the question" is still used to refer to circular reasoning, as
Dr Peavler pointed out, for the phrase is an approximate translation of
the Latin petitio principii, which is a name given to the informal
fallacy of using as a premise a proposition that is merely a restated
version of the conclusion. 

To this very day, professors of philosophy still correct students who
use the phrase "begs the question" to mean "raises the question." I
suppose that one could argue (and I'm confident you would probably want
to argue) that the way that philosophy professors use expressions is not
normal. If by "normal usage" you mean the level of refinement that one
expects to encounter in the speech of Rush Limbaugh and contestants on
American Idol (or, to use your favorite cultural standard, the readers
of Readers Digest), most educated people do indeed fail to be normal.
But when one defines normalcy by such lowly standards, for no good
reason than to justify one's own careless usage, then the argument would
be an example of begging the question. And that raises the question of
why a relatively educated person such as yourself, having shown a deep
and abiding concern for the intellectual integrity of others, would
choose to use language in the manner of a common beggar. 

I should think a person of your high moral and intellectual standards
would now seek Dr Peavler out to beg his pardon.

-- 
Richard