PurposeAsian Americans comprise 21% of matriculating medical students in the United States but little is known about their mental health. With the growing focus on addressing the mental health of medical students, this systematic, nationwide survey assesses the relationship between anxiety and depression symptoms and coping skills among Asian American medical students.Materials and methodsA survey tool comprised of Patient Health Questionnaire-9, General Anxiety Disorder-7, and questions related to coping were emailed to members of the Asian Pacific American Medical Students Association (...) enrolled in a United States medical school during the 2016–2017 academic year. We evaluated associations between anxiety and coping as well as depression and coping.ResultsA total of 511 Asian American medical students completed the survey. Anxiety symptoms were positively correlated with an increase in negative coping skills. Depressive symptoms were not correlated with an increase in negative coping skills.ConclusionProfessionals and medical schools that aim to improve the mental health of medical students should be aware of the needs of specific populations. Asian American students who experience anxiety were more likely to utilize avoidant or negative coping strategies. In addition, Asian American students who experience depressive symptoms were not more likely to utilize these negative coping strategies. Further research must be done to evaluate the factors that influence the use of negative coping strategies to better address anxiety within the Asian American medical student population. (shrink)

This paper objects to treating begging the question as circular reasoning. It argues that what is at issue in the argument is not to be confused with the claim or position that the arguer is adopting, and that logicians from Aristotle on give the wrong definition and have difficulty making sense of the fallacy because they try to define it in terms of how an argument is defined by logical theory - as a sequence consisting of premises followed by (...) a conclusion. That the problematic about begging the question depends on treating an argument as a context-less sequence of statements seems to be anticipated by the pragma-dialectical approach. The paper offers a critique of this dialogical approach, as exemplified by Douglas Walton in his recent book on begging the question, on the grounds that it raises more problems than it solves. It concludes with the suggestion that what is really at issue in discussions of begging the question is the need for a theory of fallacy. (shrink)

This book offers a new theory of begging the question as an informal fallacy, within a pragmatic framework of reasoned dialogue as a normative theory of critical argumentation. The fallacy of begging the question is analyzed as a systematic tactic to evade fulfillment of a legitimate burden of proof by the proponent of an argument. The technique uses a circular structure of argument to block the further progress of dialogue and, in particular, the capability of the respondent to (...) ask legitimate critical questions in reply to the argument. Walton analyzes the concept of burden of proof in argument, and provides chapters on the use of argument diagramming as a technique of argument reconstruction. This powerful method of argument analysis developed therein is then applied to more than 100 case studies of circular argumentation where the charge of begging the question is or has been thought to be an appropriate criticism. Throughout this work, Walton throws light on the relationship between the problem of circular reasoning and broader issues in the critical analysis of argumentation. Ground-breaking use is made of the pragmatic theory of argument as interactive dialogue. Rules for several kinds of dialogue framework provide standards of good reasoning to validate or to refute the criticism that a particular argument begs the question. This book is directed to students and professionals in the fields of speech communication, philosophy, linguistics, logic, dispute mediation, and education. (shrink)

This discussion examines two of the central notions at work in Sterba’s From Rationality to Equality: question-beggingness, and the notion of a rational requirement. I point out that, against certain unreasonable positions, begging the question is a perfectly reasonable option. I also argue that if we use the sense of “rational requirement” that philosophers ought to have in mind when defending the idea that morality is rationally required, then Sterba has not succeed in defending this idea. Rather, he has (...) at most demonstrated the rational preferability of morality over two other positions: an extreme egoism, and a very particular form of altruism. But another position exists: one that holds altruistic reasons to exist, and to be capable of justifying sacrifices, but that also holds that they do not require us to sacrifice our interests in the way that morality sometimes does require. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to make it clear how and why begging the question should be seen as a pragmatic fallacy which can only be properly evaluated in a context of dialogue. Included in the paper is a review of the contemporary literature on begging the question that shows the gradual emergence over the past twenty years or so of the dialectical conception of this fallacy. A second aim of the paper is to investigate a number (...) of general problems raised by the pragmatic framework. (shrink)

Much philosophical work has examined both imperatival and non-imperatival forms of address that aim to motivate others to action. But one such kind of address has received relatively little attention: begging. This is partly surprising as begging, both as an individual act and as a widespread social practice, raises acute, yet difficult to articulate, moral and political concerns. In this paper, I identify a central form of the phenomenon which constitutively involves communicating one’s relative powerlessness as a means (...) of motivating one’s target to act. I argue that this form of begging is present in a number of cases that animate many of our pre-theoretic normative worries about begging. I argue that when begging of this kind is bad for the beggar herself, this is so because either (i) the invoked powerlessness is bad for the beggar and thereby gives the action a negative evaluative meaning, or (ii) the invoked powerlessness is good/neutral, but the act of begging precludes or replaces valuable ways of interacting that the parties have reasons to care about in the context. In a slogan, the badness of begging revolves around power and helplessness. (shrink)

I find (as others have found) that question-begging is formally valid but rationally unpersuasive. More precisely, it ought to be unpersuasive, although it can often persuade. Despite its formal validity, question-begging fails to establish its conclusion; in this sense it fails under a classical or foundationalist model of argument. But it does link its conclusion to its premises by means of acceptable rules of inference; in this sense it succeeds under a non-classical, non-foundationalist model of argument which is (...) spelled out in the essay. However, even for the latter model question-begging fails to link the conclusion to premises that the unconvinced would find more acceptable than the conclusion. The essay includes reflections on the conditions under which the circularity of mutually supporting claims can avoid question-begging and legitimately be persuasive. (shrink)

Among contemporary philosophers, there is widespread consensus that begging the question is a grave argumentative flaw. However, there is presently no satisfactory analysis of what this flaw consists of. Here, I defend a notion of question-begging in terms of analyticity. In particular, I argue that an argument begs the question just in case its conclusion is an analytic part of the conjunction of its premises.

Since Aristotle there are two main approaches in the explanation of begging the question (petitio): a dialectical mistake (an improper move in an argumentative dialogue) and an epistemic mistake. According to the latter begging the question is committed when the premises of an argument cannot be known independently of knowing the conclusion of the argument. Dialectical approaches use the notion of a commitment (acceptance, standpoint) and rules of dialogue as their basis. I propose a hybrid model, inspired by (...) Jackson: the rationale for introducing commitments and rules is epistemic. (shrink)

No topic in informal logic is more important than begging the question. Also, none is more subtle or complex. We cannot even begin to understand the fallacy of begging the question without getting clear about arguments, their purposes, and circularity. So I will discuss these preliminary topics first. This will clear the path to my own account of begging the question. Then I will anticipate some objections. Finally, I will apply my account to a well-known and popular (...) response to scepticism by G. E. Moore. (shrink)

It is obvious that the practice of begging is growing exponentially and changing into various forms mostly among the Christians in the Nsukka area. Although begging has long been in existence in the Nsukka area, it has never been encouraged. Financial assistance from family and relatives usually prevents an indigent person from begging in the street. Giving alms to the poor is regarded as a religious duty by many people. But, some beggars take advantage of people's sympathy (...) and thus the practice of begging is encouraged. Many scholars have written about the increase in the number of beggars in Igboland and attributed it to a number of factors such as poverty and ill health. Some see it as an indictment on government. However, this present study attributes the increase in the number of beggars in Nsukka's cultural area to religion, laziness as against hard work, individualism as against communalism, social disorganisation because of urbanisation. These beggars who do nothing other than to beg are less productive, and consequently contribute nothing to the nation's economy. They are a nuisance in the society, as some engage in all kinds of immoral activities that degrade human society. This study therefore attempts to explore the growing trend of begging among Igbo Christians in Nsukka Urban. It aims to identify the different dimensions of begging and the reasons behind this practice. A qualitative phenomenological method was employed in this study. CONTRIBUTION: The findings of this study revealed that poverty is not the cause of begging among Christians in Nsukka but rather laziness, individualism, and religious mendicancy, among others. It recommends that the Igbo people should go back to the values that bind them together. (shrink)

Robert Cummins has argued that Jerry Fodor’s well-known systematicity argument begs the question. I show that the systematicity argument for thought structure does not beg the question, nor run in either explanatory nor inferential circles, nor illegitimately project sentence structure onto thoughts. Because the evidence does not presuppose that thought has structure, connectionist explanations of the same interconnections between thoughts are at least possibilities. Butthey are likely to be ad hoc.

InMetaphysics Γ, Ch. 4, Aristotle speaks of both infinite regress and question-begging, but does not explicitly relate them. We get the impression that he thinks that to use one of these arguments to avoid the other is to jump from the frying-pan into the fire. This relationship is illustrated in terms of the ignorant belief that everything can be proved, and of attempts to prove the Law of Noncontradiction.

In this article, I propose a formal criterion that distinguishes between deductively valid arguments that do and do not beg the question. I define the concept of a Never-failing Minimally Competent Knower (NMCK) and suggest that an argument begs the question just in case it cannot possibly assist an NMCK in extending his or her knowledge.

This article explores the distinction between anti-colonial longing and postcolonial becoming through a commentary on Antjie Krog’s Begging to Be Black. The epistemology and ontology of postcolonial becoming is the central concern. Begging to Be Black is a mytho-poetic narrative in which a world is imagined where King Moshoeshoe, missionaries from the 19th century, Antjie Krog and her friends and colleagues, ANC cadres, the Deleuzian philosopher Paul Patton, Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the ANC Youth League are (...) placed in the same narrative space where they can intermingle. And this is done to respond to a crisis of the present — the difficulties South Africans face in grappling with the legacies of colonialism and Apartheid, and the fact that there is a process of un-homing and re-homing that Krog feels white South Africans in particular need to think about more deeply. The article compares Krog’s approach to decolonization with that of the leading South African philosopher of ubuntu, Mogobe Ramose. Both Krog and Ramose offer the epistemological and ontological resources for grappling with the relationship between past, present and future in a decolonizing setting. The article examines how postcolonial critique may take place through liminal figures. Liminality is characterized as central to postcolonial becoming. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy, 'begging the question'. Begging the question is a logical fallacy in which the premise of an argument presupposes the truth of its conclusion; in other words, the argument takes for granted what it is supposed to prove. In works such as Prior Analytics and Topics, Aristotle was the first to introduce begging the question by stating what translates to “asking the initial thing” or “asking the (...) original point”. Labeling an argument as “begging the question” is often itself using the fallacy's name incorrectly, and yet we accept this incorrect usage. Politics is a common place for begging the question. Politicians in a debate often beg the question by giving answers that give the conclusion of the person they are citing as a truth or fact and never show any real proof of the matter. (shrink)

Ethnic nepotism theory predicts that even in times of communal peace altruism is more pronounced within than between ethnic groups. The present study tested the hypothesis that altruism in the form of alms giving would be greater within than between ethnic groups, and greater between more closely related groups than between more distant groups. The three groups chosen for study were ethnic Russians, Moldavians, and Gypsies. Russians are genetically closer to Moldavians than to Gypsies. Observations were made of 128 ethnic (...) Russian, 25 Moldavian, and 25 Gypsy beggars receiving gifts from ethnic Russians in Moscow trains. The Gypsies were mainly girls, contrary to the Russian sample. Multivariate analysis identified three main strategies: active, personified, and appeasing-undirected. Russian strategies were most variable. Gypsies presented strong charity releasers: 84% were children who played music and sang and showed appeasing-undirected behavior. The few adults were highly submissive or friendly. Nevertheless, their success was limited compared with that of ethnic Russians despite the latter’s demanding behavior and their being mostly mature or elderly persons. Moldavians received an intermediate amount of charity. The hypothesis was supported. (shrink)

A number of epistemologists have recently concluded that a piece of reasoning may be epistemically permissible even when it is impossible for the reasoning subject to present her reasoning as an argument without begging the question. I agree with these epistemologists, but argue that none has sufficiently divorced the notion of begging the question from epistemic notions. I present a proposal for a characterization of begging the question in purely pragmatic terms.

SummaryThis paper studies some classic cases of the fallacy of begging the question based on appeals to testimony containing circular reasoning. For example, suppose agents a, b and c vouch for d’s credentials, and agents b, d, and e vouch for a’s credentials. Such a sequence of reasoning is circular because a is offering testimony for d but d is offering testimony for a. The paper formulates and evaluates restrictions on the use of testimonial evidence that might be used (...) to deal with such problematic arguments. One is called the Non-repeater Rule: in an extended sequence of argumentation based on testimony, once a source x has been appealed to at any given point in the sequence, that same source x must never be appealed to again at any next point in the same sequence. (shrink)

This article answers John Biro's "Knowability, Believability, and Begging the Question: a Reply to Sanford" in "Metaphilosophy" 15 (1984). Biro and I agree that of two argument instances with the same form and content, one but not the other can beg the question, depending on other factors. These factors include actual beliefs, or so I maintain (against Biro) with the help of some analysed examples. Brief selections from Archbishop Whatley and J S Mill suggest that they also regard reference (...) to actual beliefs as essential to explaining begging the question. (shrink)

One of the most effective ways of winning an argument is to show that your opponent has begged the question. If you are sufficiently skilful in asking him leading questions and have a good sense of timing you can usually succeed in stripping him to his bare principles, with no ascertainable means for their support. That such a tactic of debate should be so effective suggests that it is more than just a ploy. Indeed some philosophers would say that it (...) takes advantage of a characteristic which is inherent in the nature of argument itself, for all arguments must be question-begging. However, few would voice this conviction publicly—for fear of being accused of begging the question. (shrink)

In a series of influential articles, the anti-realist Arthur Fine has repeatedly charged that a certain very popular argument for scientific realism, that only realism can explain the instrumental success of science, begs the question. I argue that on no plausible reading ofthe fallacy does the realist argument beg the question. In fact, Fine is himself guilty of what DeMorgan called the "opponent fallacy.".

Legal documents, like contracts or laws, are subject to interpretation. Different people can have different interpretations of the very same document. Large parts of judicial branches all over the world are concerned with settling disagreements that arise, in part, from these different interpretations. In this context, it only seems natural that during the annotation of legal machine learning data sets, disagreement, how to report it, and how to handle it should play an important role. This article presents an analysis of (...) the current state-of-the-art in the annotation of legal machine learning data sets. The results of the analysis show that all of the analysed data sets remove all traces of disagreement, instead of trying to utilise the information that might be contained in conflicting annotations. Additionally, the publications introducing the data sets often do provide little information about the process that derives the “gold standard” from the initial annotations, often making it difficult to judge the reliability of the annotation process. Based on the state-of-the-art, the article provides easily implementable suggestions on how to improve the handling and reporting of disagreement in the annotation of legal machine learning data sets. (shrink)

I develop a syntactic concept of circularity, which I call propositional circularity. With respect to a given use of an argument advanced as a statement of inference for the benefit of a reasoner R, if the direct and indirect premises R would have to accept in order to accept the conclusion includes the conclusion, then the collection of premises is propositionally circular. The argument fails to display a type of inference that R can perform. Appealing to propositional circularity, I articulate (...) a sufficient condition for a use of an argument to beg the question, highlighting why question-begging is a defect. (shrink)

Classical Arabic Begging Poetry and Šakwā, 8th–12th Centuries. By Nefeli Papoutsakis. Arabische Studien, vol. 14. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2017. Pp. viii + 254. €58.

A primary purpose of argument is to increase the degree of reasonable confidence that one has in the truth of the conclusion. A question begging argument fails this purpose because it violates what W. E. Johnson called an epistemic condition of inference. Although an argument of the sort characterized by Robert Hoffman in his response (Analysis 32.2, Dec 71) to Richard Robinson (Analysis 31.4, March 71) begs the question in all circumstances, we usually understand the charge that an argument (...) is question begging with reference to the beliefs of the person, or the sort of person, to whom the argument is directed. (shrink)

Evolutionary debunking arguments aim to undercut the epistemological status of our evaluative beliefs on the basis of the genesis of our belief-forming tendencies. This paper addresses the issue whether responses to these arguments must be question-begging. It argues for a pragmatic understanding of question-beggingness, according to which whether an argument is question-begging depends on the argumentative context. After laying out the debunking argument, the paper considers a variety of responses. It asks whether metaethical responses, such as Sharon Street’s (...) response that relies on a version of antirealism, can avoid begging the question. It argues that so-called ‘third-factor’ responses, which rely on substantive evaluative views, are not question-begging in all contexts. Similarly, it argues, my own ‘quasi-tracking’ response is not question-begging in all contexts. Finally, the paper asks whether responses to the debunking argument can avoid begging the question against someone who is convinced at the outset that the argument is sound. -/- . (shrink)

The fallacy of many questions or the complex question, popularized by the sophism ‘Have you stopped beating your spouse?’ (when a yes-or-no answer is required), is similar to the fallacy of begging the question orpetitio principii. Douglas N. Walton inBegging the Question has recently argued that the two forms are alike in trying unfairly to elicit an admission from a dialectical opponent without meeting burden of proof, but distinct because of the circularity of question-begging argument and noncircularity of (...) many questions. I offer a reconstruction of the many questions fallacy according to which it is just as circular as begging the question, concluding that many questions begs the question. The same analysis contradicts Walton's claim that questions can beg the question, drawing a distinction between questions as the instruments of question-begging, and as vehicles for categorical noninterrogative presuppositions that beg the question. (shrink)

In the first lecture, I presented three instances of the problem of armchair knowledge arising from the (LOT), (RED), and (WATER) arguments. In each case, there are armchair warrants for believing the premises, but it is implausible that the question whether or not the conclusion of the argument is true could be settled from the armchair.

The direct argument is among the most prominent arguments for the incompatibility of determinism and moral responsibility. Some critics of the argument have accused it, or certain defenses of its central premise, of begging the question. This article responds to that accusation.

In a published exchange, Richard Robinson and Roy A. Sorenson debate the matter of whether begging the question is a fallacy; Robinson thinks it is not, but Sorenson argues that it is. Norman Ten attempts to resolve this debate by making a distinction between begging the question and fallaciously begging the question. While Teng is right to note that Robinson and Sorenson are talking past each other, he incorrectly diagnoses the source of this miscommunication. In this paper, (...) then, I offer what I take to be a more illuminating distinction 3; viz. that between logical and rhetorical fallacies 3; and employ that distinction to resolve the debate. (shrink)

The essay starts by presenting two accounts of begging the question, John Biro's epistemic account and David Sanford's doxastic account. After briefly comparing these accounts, the essay will study an argument suspected of begging the question and subsequently apply the epistemic and doxastic accounts to this test case. It is found that the accounts of Biro and Sanford do not analyse the test case adequately, therefore a new account is developed using the idea of a knowledge-base.