begging the question
Sign in to saveAlso known as petitio principii, assuming the conclusion
type of fallacy, where a proposition is assumed as a premise, which itself needs a proof and directly entails the conclusion
~16 min read
Encyclopedic overview
In classical rhetoric and logic, begging the question or assuming the conclusion (Latin: petītiō principiī) is an informal fallacy that occurs when an argument's premises assume the truth of the conclusion. Historically, begging the question refers to a fault in a dialectical argument in which the speaker assumes some premise that has not been demonstrated to be true. In modern philosophical usage, it has come to refer to an argument in which the premises assume the conclusion without supporting it. This makes it an example of circular reasoning.
Some examples are:
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “begging the question” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.