"it begs the question"

[Anders]

I have never understood the expression "it begs the question". I allways wonder: "What question?". Is "it begs the question" an expression that means something else than it logically means or is one actually supposed to understand what question the other guy thinks of? And, if the latter, how shall one think to understand what question he thinks of?

[Yng]

imagine if there were some sort of international network, a kind of... 'internet' if you will, or 'world wide web', through which almost any information could be accessed from almost anywhere. No, dream further - imagine that there were some kind of readily-accessible lexicon of words and sayings, perhaps purchasable in book form or, even better, accessible through this 'internet'. Imagine, then, that this lexicon had a page which was about five seconds away from the average internet user's homepage. IMAGINE

IMAGINE THAT

[Whimemsz]

see also this LanguageLog post

[Xephyr]

imagine if there were some sort of international network, a kind of... 'internet' if you will, or 'world wide web', through which almost any information could be accessed from almost anywhere. No, dream further - imagine that there were some kind of readily-accessible lexicon of words and sayings, perhaps purchasable in book form or, even better, accessible through this 'internet'. Imagine, then, that this lexicon had a page which was about five seconds away from the average internet user's homepage. IMAGINE

Yeah yeah "l2google" and all that, but.... that page you linked doesn't answer his question.

[clawgrip]

It's not as easy to find the answer to this as you guys seem to think. Anyway, here is an actual answer.

I'm assuming you already understand the actual logical fallacy and are not referring to the modern usage "raise the question."

"Begs the question" is a rather poor translation of petitio principii. The "question" is actually the premise you are trying to prove, and begging here means "referring to", in the sense that the proof you provide of the premise actually needs to "refer to" the premise it is trying to prove.

[krinnen]

imagine if there were some sort of international network, a kind of... 'internet' if you will, or 'world wide web', through which almost any information could be accessed from almost anywhere. No, dream further - imagine that there were some kind of readily-accessible lexicon of words and sayings, perhaps purchasable in book form or, even better, accessible through this 'internet'. Imagine, then, that this lexicon had a page which was about five seconds away from the average internet user's homepage. IMAGINE

IMAGINE THAT

I'd go even further, and imagine a person having all those miraculous resources, and still wanting to interact with actual people, learn from them, maybe even weight different opinions. Imagine

I suppose in such scenario you would always encounter one or two guys who think they are clever by pointing to dead trees and fancy gadgets... They might even invent catchy phrases like, I don't know, say... "google it", or something like that.

Now imagine that!

[zompist]

Off-topic, but I just noticed this:

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture

But she didn't; it was Martin Mull, who was himself improving a quote that dates back to 1918.

[krinnen]

Off-topic, but I just noticed this:

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture

But she didn't; it was Martin Mull, who was himself improving a quote that dates back to 1918.

Hahaha, you should check your junk mail... near July 17th...

[zompist]

You should check yours, as I responded. That was why I looked it up...

[krinnen]

You should check yours, as I responded. That was why I looked it up...

Oh! I never got that! (just checked)