Re:No Longer an Inspiration
by dragonwriter on Wednesday April 15, 2015 @01:38PM
(#9382657)
> Just a tip - "begs the question" refers to form of logical fallacy where one forms a conclusion that lacks support.
Just a tip: the use of "begs the question" to which you refer is always intransitive. The transitive use, as by the poster you responded to, is distinct, and unambiguously a different use than the intransitive use. AFAICT, its inspired by the transitive use, which is an odd (from the point of view of the meanings of the individual words in modern English) translation of a Latin phrase into English, and -- unlike the intransitive use -- actually uses the individual words in something like their usual definitions. It also provides a convenient rationalization of the older intransitive use as a specialization of the transitive use where the question for which an answer is demanded is that of the support for the premise under discussion, so that the transitive use turns the intransitive use from an idiom that is detached from the meanings of the words in the language outside of the idiom to one connected to it in a clear way.
Accepting the transitive use, which is widely established and whose meaning is immediately clear to anyone who encounters it and which is completely unambiguously differentiated from the intransitive use, does nothing but make life better for everyone.
Opposing it isn't merely pedantry, its pedantry that ignores clear grammatical distinctions and seeks to find confusion where there is none to be found.
Just a tip: the use of "begs the question" to which you refer is always intransitive. The transitive use, as by the poster you responded to, is distinct, and unambiguously a different use than the intransitive use. AFAICT, its inspired by the transitive use, which is an odd (from the point of view of the meanings of the individual words in modern English) translation of a Latin phrase into English, and -- unlike the intransitive use -- actually uses the individual words in something like their usual definitions. It also provides a convenient rationalization of the older intransitive use as a specialization of the transitive use where the question for which an answer is demanded is that of the support for the premise under discussion, so that the transitive use turns the intransitive use from an idiom that is detached from the meanings of the words in the language outside of the idiom to one connected to it in a clear way.
Accepting the transitive use, which is widely established and whose meaning is immediately clear to anyone who encounters it and which is completely unambiguously differentiated from the intransitive use, does nothing but make life better for everyone.
Opposing it isn't merely pedantry, its pedantry that ignores clear grammatical distinctions and seeks to find confusion where there is none to be found.