beg the question
Speech parts
1. beg the question - Verb
2. beg the question - Phrase
Meaning
(philosophy, logic, law) To engage in the logical fallacy of begging the question (petitio principii).
To sidestep or fail to address a question.
(sometimes proscribed) To raise or prompt a question.
Three people were hurt in the fire at the warehouse last night, which begs the question: what were they doing there in the first place?
Synonyms
Antonyms
Examples
However, if they are going to posit a causal relationship between “anti-police”(brutality ) protests and anti-police violence (by an incredibly disturbed individual ), it does beg the question as to what cause preceded the protests in question.
Such is the traditional or strict use of the term. Trouble arises, however, because the "question" or assumption is usually left unstated in the statements it describes, and consequently beg the question often means "to evade or ignore the question."
Liam Hemsworth and Gabriella Brooks Beg the Question, How Can One Couple Be So Good-Looking?
One way to beg the question is to make a statement first in concrete terms, then in abstract ones, or vice versa.
Sorting out exactly what beg the question means, however, is not always easy—especially in constructions such as beg the question of whether and beg the question of how, where the door is opened to more than one question.
To assume a dualistic relationship between sacred and profane and to use this as a criterion of religion is to beg the question of whether Confucian can count as a religious tradition.