WORDSWORDSWORDS#13 (Begging the Question)

Last week, Washington Post columnist Mark Lasswell penned a language column about a long-abused phrase-begging the question. My scholarly friend Bill and I spent some time discussing how one should respond to the misusage of the term. When I was young, begging the question was the phrase used to designate a logical fallacy in speech or prose. When I taught logical fallacies to my AP students, begging the question was always on the list of offenses. To clarify, let me give the definition of the term and an example.

Since the days of Aristotle, begging the question has referred to the acceptance of an unproven conclusion. When the argument the speaker puts forth includes a premise that is unproven, the argument is flawed. I often referred to it as "circular reasoning" in my classes. Lasswell cites the estimable H. W. Fowler, who provided the following example a hundred years ago in his classic work A Dictionary of Modern English Usage:

“Foxhunting is not cruel, since the fox enjoys the fun.”

Of course, there is no empirical evidence that foxes can't wait to be chased across meadows and through dales in an attempt to avoid being torn apart by a pack of ravening dogs. But if you are trying to defend your sport from the PETA protestors, why not predicate your stance on the notion that foxes need recreation too!

In recent years, however, it is much more likely that users of the phrase are attempting to say that the situation under discussion "begs" for an attendant "question" to be asked. Lasswell writes, "Today, lots of people blithely deploy it as just a rhetorical device for setting up a question they want to ask." In fact, Merriam-Webster gives as its first definition of begging the question: "to elicit a question logically as a reaction or response", and their example is "the quarterback's injury begs the question of who will start in his place. The classic usage of the term as a rhetorical fallacy is relegated to the second position.

Here is the Usage Note from the more traditional American Heritage Usage panel:

Usage Note: Historically, logicians and philosophers have used the phrase beg the question to mean "to put forward an argument whose conclusion is already assumed as a premise." Usually, when people beg the question in this sense, the conclusion and the assumed premise are put in slightly different words, which tends to obscure the fact that such an argument is logically meaningless. For instance, to argue that caviar tastes better than peanut butter because caviar has a superior flavor is to beg the question—the premise that is taken as given (that caviar's flavor is superior) is essentially identical to the point it is intended to prove (that caviar tastes better).·But since at least the early 1900s, laypeople have been using beg the question in slightly different senses, to mean "raise a relevant question" or "leave a relevant question unanswered." When used in these senses, beg the question is usually followed by a clause explaining what the question in question is, as in That article begs the question of whether we should build a new school or renovate the old one or The real estate listing claims that the kitchen is spacious, which begs the question of what "spacious" means. These senses of beg the question are so well established that they have nearly displaced the original sense in everyday usage, but they are still often frowned on by traditionalists, especially those with training in philosophy; in our 2013 survey, the sentences above were judged acceptable only by slim majorities of the Usage Panel—55 and 58 percent, respectively. By contrast, a sentence using the phrase in its original sense (When I asked him why we must protect every endangered species regardless of the cost, he said it was because every species is priceless, but that just begs the question) was considered acceptable by 79 percent of the Panel. The newer senses of beg the question will probably continue to flourish because "begging a question" suggests "begging for," or "raising" a question. However, this broader usage will also probably continue to draw the ire of philosophers and others who use the "circular reasoning" sense of the term, for which there is no good substitute, and do not want to see its technical meaning lost.

The panel notes a dramatic increase of the "elicit a question" usage, and in his column Lasswell provides some contemporary supporting data. He writes, "Good old Ngram Viewer, informed by millions of books Google has scanned, will tell you in an instant how frequently words and phrases have been used in books published since 1800. The result for “begs the question” shows the phrase rolling along, with bumps and dips, across the many decades, until 1980, when it begins a rocketing 40-year climb to, by far, its highest-ever usage." Since 1980, virtually no one employing the term is referring to "circular reasoning".

Lasswell's solution to the problem is to abandon the term altogether. As Bill and I discussed, if you use the classic definition (in our prescriptivist minds--if you use the term correctly) no one will know what you are talking about and you will be viewed as ignorant. Can we say that those who use its new meaning are incorrect if most people understand exactly what they mean? I think begging the question no longer means what it did for nearly 2500 years. I would agree with Lasswell's suggestion to abandon the term altogether, except that I know how language works. No one is going to stop employing the phrase in its modern usage for reasons of language purity. If anything, it will become more widely used in its new sense. So, attempts to send the phrase into oblivion are pointless.

I think it's interesting to see words and phrases that change spelling and meaning based upon what they sound like (see my earlier post about the Psych/Sike confusion). Just today I read someone talking about a vitamin "regiment" needed to maintain one's health. And I often hear people saying that they need to try a different "tact" to achieve success. Of course, the former person meant to use the word "regimen", meaning: "a prescribed course of medical treatment, way of life, or diet for the promotion or restoration of health" but probably didn't know that word (and please don't throw "regime" into the mix) and found a word that was close to the same. Virtually no one knows the meaning of the verb "tack": "to change course by turning a boat's head into and through the wind". But almost everyone has heard of the word "tact" and finds it convenient to use as a substitute for the correct word. Perhaps language purists can save the original words, but I am not confident. And as language relativists are likely to argue, if people understand your meaning--good enough!