A pet peeve of mine has been bubbling over lately, and I need to set things right. What I cannot stand is when people use the phrase “begging the question” improperly. In most cases when people use the phrase “begging the question,” they mean to say that something “raises a question.”

“Begging the question” is a form of logical fallacy in which a statement or claim is assumed to be true without evidence other than the statement or claim itself, it has nothing to do with asking or answering a question. When one begs the question, the initial assumption of a statement is treated as already proven without any logic to show why the statement is true in the first place.

A simple example would be “I think he is unattractive because he is ugly.” The adjective “ugly” does not explain why the subject is “unattractive” — they virtually amount to the same subjective meaning, and the proof is merely a restatement of the premise. The sentence has begged the question.

So to sum up, “begging the question” has nothing to do with asking or answering a question. An improper use of the phrase would be as follows: “It begs the question, why is he so dumb?” This phrase should read: “It raises the question, why is he so dumb?”

There, I feel better.

Tags:begging the questionlogical fallacypet peevephilosophy