(urth) torturing BTQ

James Wynn crushtv at gmail.com
Thu Jul 23 07:32:38 PDT 2009


>>Also, while Severian *says* he has perfect memory, it begs the question 
>>"How does he know that?"
>
> BTQ abuse makes the Baby Theoanthropos cry.
> http://begthequestion.info/
> You can make a difference.

Thanks for not reporting my BTQ abuse to Logic Protective Services. ;-)

Still, while I can see how the term "begs the question" might be misused 
("Which begs the question, who made James a logician?") , it has never been 
clear to me why "begs the question" is bad form to introduce a question that 
*properly* illustrates an unsupported premise in a statement.

For example, I could have said: "This is begging the question. How does he 
know that?" That would have protected me from allegations of BTQA, but the 
two phrases convey the same  meaning and the modified form does not distort 
the etymological intent of the term (as I understand it). Granted, the 
modified form is not "easier", but I think reflexive outrage at the mere use 
of the term "begs the question" is oversensitivity on the part of some 
logicians...which is reason enough to use it.

"[Irony is] like rain on a wedding day" is not true. The statement is an 
outrage to "irony". But the problem is not the syntactical form.

James 




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