[oclug] [OT] 'Beg the Question' (was standards and protocols)

[Shad Young]

I stand corrected :)

Shad

On Tue, 2003-01-21 at 10:10, Charly Baker wrote:
>                         Fowler defines "begging the question" as the "fallacy
> of
>                         founding a conclusion on a basis that as much needs
> to be proved as
>                         the conclusion itself."
> 
>                            "Question" here does not mean "a sentence in
> interrogative form".
>                         Rather, it means "the point at issue, the thing that
> the person is
>                         trying to prove".  The phrase is elucidated by
> William Fulke in
>                         "Heskins parleamant repealed" (1579):  "O shameless
> beggar, that
>                         craveth no less than the whole controversy to be
> given him!"  The
>                         OED's first citation for "to beg the question" is
> from 1581.
> 
>                            Common varieties of begging the question are
> paraphrase of the
>                         statement to be proved ("Telepathy cannot exist
> because direct
>                         transfer of thought between individuals is
> impossible"), and
>                         arguing in a circle ("The Bible must be true, because
> God wouldn't
>                         lie to us; we know God is trustworthy, because it
> says so in the
>                         Bible").  Fowler gives two example of non-circular
> question-begging:
>                         "that fox-hunting is not cruel, since the fox enjoys
> the fun, and
>                         that one must keep servants, since all respectable
> people do so".
>                         Gowers notes that single words, such as "reactionary"
> and
>                         "victimization", can be used in a question-begging
> way.
> 
>                            The Latin term for the fallacy is petitio
> principii, a
>                         translation of the Greek to en archei aiteisthai="at
> the
>                         beginning to assume"; but aiteisthai does literally
> mean "to beg".
>                         The phrase can be traced back to Aristotle (4th
> century B.C.):
>                         "Begging or assuming the point at issue consists (to
> take the
>                         expression in its widest sense) in failing to
> demonstrate the
>                         required proposition.  But there are several other
> ways in which
>                         this may happen; for example, if the argument has not
> taken
>                         syllogistic form at all [...].  If, however, the
> relation of B to C
>                         is such that they are identical, or that they are
> clearly
>                         convertible, or that one applies to the other, then
> he is begging
>                         the point at issue." (Prior Analytics II xvi)
> 
> 
> 
> Raymond Wood wrote:
> 
> > On Tue, Jan 21, 2003 at 09:54:56AM -0500, Charly Baker remarked:
> >
> > > Shad Young wrote:
> >
> > > > On Mon, 2003-01-20 at 22:37, Reid Gravelle wrote:
> > > > > Hey Shad,
> > > > >
> > > > > How about this?  A content standard describes the data
> > > > > that's being transmitted while the protocol is how it's
> > > > > transferred.
> > > > >
> > > > > Reid.
> >
> > > > Excellent answer. This of course begs the next question, is
> > > > HTML a protocol or a content standard? XML?
> >
> > > No it does not.  It raises the next question.  The idiom "begs
> > > the question" does NOT mean what you (and sadly lots of
> > > others) think it does.
> > >
> > > CB
> >
> > Just curious - what is the difference between these 2 phrases?
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Raymond
> >
> >   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >    Part 1.2Type: application/pgp-signature
> 
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- Machiavelli
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