Petitio Principii

(Begging the Question or Circular Argument)

Abstract: Petitio principii is a logical fallacy where the conclusion of

an argument is claimed to be proved by an equivalent statement in the
premises. Furthermore, one of the premises is logically dependent on
the conclusion of the argument. Circular arguments are epistemic
variations of the fallacy, whereas the begging the question fallacies are
dialectical failures. The varieties of petitio principii (including
begging the question and circular argument) are explained with
illustrative examples and links to self-check quizzes.

I. Petitio Principii (begging the question or circular argument) is

the fallacy of assuming in the premise(s) of an argument a
statement which equivalent the conclusion of the argument.
Thus, what is to be proved has already been assumed in the
premises.
A. The informal structure of the petitio principii is often
similar to one of the following schemata:

Some Informal Structures of Petitio Principii

Immediate (hysteron proteron):

Statement p′ is true.
Statement p is true. (Where p is a paraphrase of p′.)

Grammatical or Logical Immediate Inference

Statement p is true.
Statement not-p is not true.

Circular (circulus in probando):

Statement p is true.
Statement q is true.
Statement r is true.
Statement p is true.

1
B. Because the sense of the conclusion (or a suitable
paraphrase of the conclusion) is stated in a premise of the
argument, the premise would be proved as well by the
evidence provided by the conclusion, if the order of
statements were reversed. Petitio principii is most
commonly known as the fallacy of begging the question
even though the term “begging the question” has other
vernacular uses.[1]
1. The term “petitio principii” is used more often in the
context of formal logic and the logic of proof than in
the context of informal logic.
2. The term “begging the question” is used most often
in the context of informal logic: conversational
reasoning, disputation, debate, argumentation, or
dialectical reasoning.
C. Petitio principii can occur as a formal fallacy even though
it is usually classified as an informal fallacy.[2]
1. Strictly speaking, petitio principii or begging the
question is a valid but fallacious argument. The
argument is defined as fallacious since the conclusion
does not logically follow from a premise whose truth
has been previously established. Thus, the argument
does not prove anything that was already not already
known.

David Sanford points out if “the primary purpose of

argument is to increase the degree of reasonable
confidence which one has in the truth of the
conclusion … every question-begging argument fails
this purpose.”[3] Thus, even though petitio
principii arguments do not founder logically, they do
so epistemologically.
2. Since some instances of petitio principii can be
reformulated as as a syllogism where the conclusion

2
 follows from one premise and the other premise is
superfluous,[4] the argument is logically valid but
does not prove the truth of the conclusion since that
statement has already been assumed as a premise.

E.g., “All men are mortal so Socrates is mortal.”

If we know the first statement is true, then we also

know the second statement is true. There would seem
to be no need to state the minor premise that Socrates
is a man, since that is the person being referred to as
the subject of the conclusion.
D. Petitio principii is sometimes defined as a simple or
immediate argument, whereas circular reasoning is said to
involve two or more arguments and so is a mediate
argument. (From a logical point of view, distinguishing
immediate from mediate circular reasoning is not essential
and is only done so for purposes of classification.)

Nevertheless, most current textbooks conflate petitio

principii, begging the question, and circular reasoning
(circulus in probanbo) as interchangeable terms. However
this is not the case in much of the academic literature.
Douglas Walton, for example, makes the distinction by
noting that circular arguments can fail to establish their
conclusion in several ways, but immediate begging-the-
question arguments fail only the probative function of
argument (i.e., begging-the-question arguments do not
prove the conclusion.)[5]
II. The main forms of the petitio principii discussed below include:
A. Immediate argument (hysteron proteron) occurs when the
fallacy occurs as a simple premise-conclusion argument.
Some examples include these varieties:
1. Question-begging epithets (sometimes called
question-begging appellatives) are terms or phrases
3
 employed in stating the same thing as that which is to
be proved. Question-begging epithets are effectively
used as emotively significant terms (i.e., slanted
language) which presuppose expressions used
elsewhere in the argument.

E.g., “Fundamentally God is just and loving because

he rewards the good and punishes the wicked.”[6]
2. Assuming an abstract statement to be proved from a
premise in the form of a more concrete statement is
another use of question-begging epithets:

“[T]he lodestone attracts iron because it possesses the

magnetic quality.”[7]
B. Circular reasoning often is described as a mediate
argument occurring in an extensive, often convoluted,
argument where what is to be demonstrated has already
been assumed in the evidential part of reasoning.

The same or other arguments closely related to circular

reasoning (circulus probando) include reasoning in a
vicious circle (circulus vitiosus) and reasoning in a
virtuous circle (circulus virtuosus).[8]

Reasoning in a virtuous circle is not usually considered

fallacious since it is more or less based on a coherence
theory of truth — not a correspondence (or referential)
theory. More on this is described below in section IV.
C. In argumentation, an effective way to expose an
adversary's petitio principii is to request for evidence of the
truth of the premises. The proponent is then hard-pressed
not to repeat the conclusion. E.g., to the oft-cited example
“God exists because the Bible says so, and the Bible is true
because it comes from God,” an appropriate question to
reveal the circularity is to ask how the proponent knows
that God exists and the Bible is factual.[9]
4
 D. On the standard view of informal fallacy theory (i.e., what
is taught in most textbooks), often the reason petitio
principii is considered to be a fallacy is not that the
inference is invalid (because any statement is indeed
equivalent to itself), but that the argument can be
deceptive.[10] Nevertheless, identification of fallacious
reasoning ought to be based on logical rather than
psychological principles. Consequently, from a logical
point of view, the fallacy is said to occur because a
statement does not prove itself as a conclusion of an
argument. A conclusion must have a different source from
itself for reasons, grounds or evidence of its truth.
III. The least convincing kind of petitio principii is the repetition of
the same words in the same order in both premise and
conclusion. Such an argument is not informative but might be
given in unusual circumstances, e.g., the speaker is very tired,
talking to a subordinate or a child, in anger, or perhaps even
using phatic language.[11]
A. E.g., consider this typical example from from a story by
Guy de Maupassant:

“Monsieur Daron, very perplexed, said excitedly:

‘Look, he must have died of something! What do you
think it was?”

The doctor threw up his hands.

‘I've no idea, no idea at all. He died because he died,
that's all.’”[12]

B. A similar version of this fallacy occurs when the

conclusion or the premise is rephrased to appear as though
it's a different statement The rephrasing can be by
rewording a premise with a synonymous phrase or with
phrase such that both propositions state what amount to the
same thing.

5
1. Typical synonymous or interchangeable
rephrasing instances are similar to these examples:

“They [egos] understand this kind of sense, because it

is sensible to them.”[13]

“[I]t [the soul] is immortal, because it does

not really perish.”[14]
2. Jeremy Bentham points out the use of question-
begging epithets or question-begging
appellatives which assume the point at issue through
the use of emotively laden language. He points out
“the mode of using the fallacy with the greatest
effect, and least risk of detection,—namely, by the
employment of a single appellative”[15]

E.g.,“Effective learning occurs during short study

periods because your study time is not wasted in
longer stretches of drudgery.”
3. Or consider the example provided by William
Stanley Jevons: “It would be a Petitio Principii to
argue that [a] doctrine is heresy, and therefore it
ought to be condemned. To assert that it is heresy is
to beg the question, because every one understands
by heresy a doctrine which is to be condemned.”[16]
4. An illustrative example of pointing out the use of a
question-begging epithet is shown in the following
exchange of letters in the London Review of Books:

Christopher Eddy writes, “Markus Eichorn claims

that Frans de Waal's ‘elegant experiments on
primates have shown evidence of intentionality in
communication’ There is other evidence, even more
compelling, that dumb animals do not
communicate.”[17]

6
 Adam Sandell replies, “Christopher Eddy thinks that
communication isn't possible for what he likes to call
‘dumb animals’, a circularity by which he means
“non-human animals”.[18]
C. Jevons observes that petitio principii often occurs when
Saxon, Latin, or Greek words are used arguments which
express the much the same thing in different terms.[19]

Whatley concurs that since English is composed of words

taken from other languages which are synonymous, the
same statement can be present in premise and conclusion.
The following argument by Whatley is used in many
textbooks and papers as a paradigm example of begging
the question:

“[T]o allow every man an unbounded freedom of speech,

must always be, on the whole, advantageous to the State;
for it is highly conducive to the interest of the community,
that each individual should enjoy a liberty perfectly
unlimited of expressing his sentiments.”[20]

However, this example shows how contextually dependent

such arguments can be subject to interpretation. Walton,
the preeminent logician for begging the question, states at
one point this argument is, “ the classic case of the
equivalency type of circularity.” Yet, it seems clear that
there remains a contentious point of equivalency not only
between “every man” and “every individual” in 18th
century England and today but also between the significant
difference of denotation of “the State” and “the
community.”[21]
D. Another common kind of petitio principii ensues from the
transformation of a conclusion into a premise using logical
or grammatical principles.
1. “You know that God is a just and loving God because
God is God and cannot be unjust or unloving.”
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 2. “There are many juvenile delinquents since many
juveniles break the law, and the reason so many
juveniles break the law is that they are juvenile
delinquents.”
IV. In circular reasoning (circulus in probando) the conclusion is
assumed as a premise either immediately in the argument or else
assumed mediately as a premise in a series of arguments. (The
distinction between immediate and mediate circular reasoning is
not of particular logical or epistemological consequence.)
A. In direct or immediate circular arguments, the conclusion
is explicitly assumed in the premise of that argument and,
generally speaking, is easily recognized unless it is part of
an extended narrative. An immediate viciously
circular argument is present whenever the premise used
for accepting the conclusion is the same statement as the
conclusion itself.
1. The vicious circularity is obvious in the following
example since it is of the form of A because
of B and B because of A:

“The Soul is simple because it is immortal, and it

must be immortal because it is simple.”[22]
2. Here is another example of the same form but the
fallacy is accomplished by means of paraphrase:

“Iraq can be subject to a suspension of law and

forced to swallow the prescriptions of the neo-liberal
order, precisely because it remains outside the
protection of international law. and it remains outside
the protection of international law because it has not
become fully integrated into the neo-liberal
order.”[23]
3. An example from Émile Durkheim's writing is of the
same form but occurs over the scope of over one

8
 hundred pages. Durkheim adduces evidence that (1)
religion is the source of the forms of society, and, as
well, (2) Durkheim presents evidence that the forms
of society determine the character of religion. What
follows are the essential premises and conclusions of
his circular argument:

First, the premises:

(1) “[L]aw, morals and even scientific thought itself

were born of religion”[24] and “[T]he most diverse
methods and practices, both those that make possible
the continuation of the moral life (law, morals,
beaux-arts) and those serving the material life (the
natural, technical and practical sciences), are either
directly or indirectly derived from religion.”[25]

And, second, the conclusions:

(2) “We regard it [i.e., the religious nature of man] as

the product of social causes, we consider it
impossible to find it, if we leave aside his social
environment.“ and “[R]eligious evolution … depends
upon social conditions”[26]
B. In philosophy and science, petitio principii can be
accomplished through the use of definition to posit “facts.”
1. For example, the biologist Agassiz argued for the
immutability of species in this manner:

”It was a great step in the progress of science when it

was ascertained that species have fixed characters,
and that they do not change in the course of time. …
Geology only shows that at different periods there
have existed different species. The question we are
now examining involves only the fixity or mutability
of species during one epoch, one era, one period in

9
 the history of our globe. And nothing furnishes the
slightest argument in favor of their mutability; on the
contrary … species are fixed.”[27]

As Darwin points out, Agassiz's circularity in

defining the immutability of species is accomplished
by assuming no species exist between historical
periods.[28]
2. And Locke's definition of justice illustrates this kind
of vicious circular reasoning:

“Where there is no property, there is no injustice, is a

proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid:
for the idea of proper, being a right to anything, and
the idea to which the name injustice is given, being
the invasion or violation of that right; it is evident
that these ideas being thus established, and these
names annexed to them, I can as certainly know this
proposition to be true, as that a triangle has three
angles equal to two right ones.[29]
C. The fallacy in mediate circular reasoning (circulus in
probando) is sometimes difficult to detect in long, dense
arguments. Moreover, the precise nature, definition and
limits of application of this fallacy have been in dispute
since the 17th century.

One form of this variety of petitio prinicpii is the use of an

intermediate step or steps in shifting from the premise to a
statement of the same meaning in the conclusion.
Essentially there is a linking of premises through
subconclusions to a conclusion which returns to the
beginning. This form of petitio principii is described as
arguing in a mediate vicious circle. Consider the following
argument in which the terms are labeled for convenience of
analysis:

10
 1. “Intuitions[C] are true representations in
consciousness[B] and since any formative image
from the unconscious[A] is an intuition[C], these
images[A] are true representations in
consciousness[B].

That being the case (i.e., [A] being [B]), and because
all true representations in consciousness[B], not
being representations from sense experience, are
intuitions[C], it follows that all formative images
from the unconscious[A] are intuitions[C].”
2. Note the vicious circularity in the form of the
foregoing argument as represented by the red text:

All C is B.
All A is C
All A is B.

All B is C.
All A is B.
All A is C.

D. Mutually dependent instances of modus ponens also serve

an an example of vicious circular reasoning or circulus
vitiosus as when the conclusion of one argument becomes
a premise of the next argument in order to prove a premise
of the first argument.

Consider this two-part purported argument for free will:

If people have free will, people are morally responsible.

People have free will.
People are morally responsible.

If people are morally responsible, then people have free

will.

11
 People are morally responsible.
People have free will.
E. Arguments like these occasionally occur in religious,
philosophical, and literary passages:
1. “Chronicles are only a minuscule portion of God's
recorded details about people throughout time. … he
records everything. … At the end of time, all will
know that God is just and loving, because we all will
have access to those open books. God's books will
proclaim that he's eternally right and accurate.”[30]
2. “I once overheard three brothers dividing two candy
bars. The oldest one gave each of the two younger
ones half of a candy bar, and kept a whole bar for
himself. When asked why he got more candy, he said
he was the smartest. A few minutes later, one of the
younger ones asked why he was the smartest, and in
reply the oldest said ‘Because I have more
candy.’”[31]
F. The main difficulties in evaluating complex instances
of petitio principii include attempting to diagram extensive
arguments by sorting out evidential priority order of
reasons and then constructing all tacit reasons and
conclusions.
V. The most difficult kind of petitio principii to identify is the kind
where one of the premises and the eventual conclusion have
exceedingly similar “propositional content.” I.e., the statements
are suitable paraphrases of each other (without
meaning exactly the same thing), and each depends upon the
other for its truth. This variety of petitio principii often is the
occasion of controversy about “how much of a difference makes
a difference” for the occurrence of non-synonymity.
A. A controversial example involves the case of an analytical
tautology where one premise seems to include the
conclusion in its meaning. E.g.,
12
 All Euclidean triangles are plane figures.
This triangle is an Euclidean triangle.
This triangle is a plane figure.

The minor premise “This triangle is an Euclidean triangle”

necessarily includes by definition the conclusion that it is a
plane figure. Some logicians allow this syllogism to be
logically valid but not informative. Thus, the syllogism
would be identified as petitio principii.[32]

B. In Moliére's play Le Malade Imaginaire, the Primus

Doctor states …

“‘Opium produces sleep’ to which I reply, ‘Because

there is in it that dormative power whose nature
makes the senses drowsy.’”[33]

C. The following example of rephrased propositional content,

provided by Ian Hacking, is a description of a petitio
principii in economic theory committed by the statistician
Ernst Engel:

“A law has been named after Engel … Engel's law states

that ‘the poorer the individual, the family or a people, the
greater must be the percentage of the income needed for
the maintenance of physical sustenance, and of this a
greater proportion must be allowed for food.’ It is odd to
find this as a law, since Engel had used the proportion of
outgoings on food as the measure of material standard of
living.”[34]
D. A more controversial example is illustrated from the
writings of Sigmund Freud where he relates an illustration
of his argument that all dreams are wish-fulfillments
because any dream which does not fulfill a wish does
fulfill the wish to prove his theory wrong. So, on this
interpretation of the following passage, his reasoning is
essentially that all dreams are wish-fulfillments because
any non-wish-fulfillment dream is actually a dream of
13
 wish-fulfillment:

“A contradiction to my theory of dream produced by

another of my women patients (the cleverest of all my
dreamers) was resolved more simply, but upon the same
pattern: namely that the nonfulfillment of one wish meant
the fulfillment of another. One day I had been explaining
to her that dreams are fulfillments of wishes. Next day she
brought me a dream in which she was traveling down with
her mother-in-law to the place in the country where they
were to spend their holidays together. Now I knew that she
had violently rebelled against the idea of spending the
summer near her mother-in-law and that a few days earlier
she had successfully avoided the propinquity she dreaded
by engaging rooms in a far distant resort. And now her
dream had undone the solution she had wished for; was not
this the sharpest contradiction of my theory that in dreams
wishes are fulfilled? No doubt; and it was only necessary
to follow the dream's logical consequence in order to arrive
at its interpretation. The dream showed that I was
wrong. Thus it was her wish that I might be wrong, and her
dream showed that wish fulfilled [italics original]”[35]
VI. Arguing in a virtuous circle (circulus virtuosus) occurs when
justifying, explaining, or proving a statement on the basis of a
general theory, philosophy, or world view. That system is
constructed of a web of mutually logically dependent statements
such that the truth of any particular statement is logically
derivable from the truth of other statements in the system.
Whenever such justification is informative, no fallacy is said to
occur since the reasoning fulfills the epistemological or
probative function of an argument.
A. Consequently the soundness of a virtuously circular
argument is based on the fact that the conclusion is already
known to be true as it follows from other statement in the
system of statements.

14
 B. The truth of premises which support such a theory are
supposed to be able to be established by assumption,
argument, empirical reference, or pragmatic practice,
although these antecedents are not addressed in virtuous
circle arguments.
C. In virtuous circular reasoning, the soundness of the
argument is said to be established internally — i.e., it
follows logically from other statements. The particular
inference is rendered informative by the presence of the
other statements in the system.
1. However, in debates between two different world
views, each disputant justifies assertions in terms of
other statements accepted as true in accordance with
their respective views. And their disagreement stems
from the particular inconsistencies between the
corresponding different statements embedded in each
respective viewpoint under discussion.
2. So the resolution of the clash of theoretical
differences can only be resolved through some
externally justifiable standard — presumably based
on some kind of empirical validation.
VII. A number of other techniques in disputation are sometimes
confused with petitio principii or begging the question.
A. Assuming the truth of a statement without argument, by
itself, is not necessarily petitio principii or begging the
question. Every disagreement must start from statements
assumed as premises. Circularity occurs when a non-self-
evident assumed statement is used in an argument to prove
itself.
B. The fallacy of begging the question is not a case of proving
something beside the question or something irrelevant to
the issue under consideration. That is, circular reasoning is
not simply missing the point at issue.[36] Such passages as
these, however, are interpreted as a diversionary tactic
15
 making use of the fallacies of irrelevance most often
designated as either ignoratio elenchi or red herring.

E.g., consider this non sequitur:

“Understanding is immortal because the truths of the

Universe will always be immortal.”[37]

Supplying the missing premise,

“Understandings are truths of the universe”

reveals the lack of circularity.

C. On occasion, the scope of the fallacy has been mistakenly

extended to include the rephrasing in terms of a vacuous,
meaningless expression, or a truism which, although not
falsifiable, does not add anything or give any additional
information. So in the context of the argument, it is
claimed the “reasoning” provided has the import of saying
much the same thing, i.e., arguing in a circle.

Here are two typical examples of vacuous reasoning:

1. ”[The] five-year tenure as [city] Police Chief came to
an abrupt end Monday evening. … ‘The reason for
the discharge as that we want to move ahead in a
different direction,’ [the Mayor] said. ‘His services
were no longer needed.’[38]
2. “The attractive interaction between the lodestone and
iron [is] caused by xiang gan (mutual influence), a
sympathetic response between two interacting
entities.… [S}ome items attract others, while some
cannot, because their qui is different and
consequently they cannot mutually influence one
another.”[39]
D. Name-calling or ad hominem attacks can be viewed as
question-begging epithets, but such arguments should not
16
 be confused with the fallacy of begging the question, as
some logic textbooks have done.[40] It is important to
remember that not every emotively-laden adjective used in
disputation begs the question at issue.
E. Quite often, petitio principii can only be accurately
identified within the context of a presentation or
discussion, not in isolation of that context. As in all
informal fallacy evaluations, the context of the passage is
vital.
1. Petitio principii arguments can suffer from a certain
degree of ambiguity and vagueness due to lack of
knowledge of their context and intention. Many
informal logicians argue that, in general, circular
reasoning cannot be judged in the absence of
dialogue. In the following argument, a dialogical
approach is clearly necessary in order to rule out
circularity:

”Autonomous vehicles will be nice for

everyone, because they will let people get on
with something worthwhile as they travel.”[41]

Does “get on with something worthwhile” mean “get

on their way with a worthwhile vehicle ” (as opposed
to run-down public transportation) or does the phrase
mean “do a worthwhile activity when traveling”?

2. Consider the following argument which appears to be

circular:

“I do it because that's what I do.”[42]

The argument seems to conclude “I do it” from the

assumption that I do it. The author might be arguing
that the truth of the statement, “I do it,” is based on
the empirical fact that I do it. However, the context of

17
 the passage is suggested from a couple of snippets in
its continuation …

“I design a magazine and do Internet work in

my spare time because it is my magazine and
Internet work … I've see[n] people li[v]e their
lives wishing they were doing something else,
wishing they had different opportunities
…”[43]

So since the intent of the excerpt of the argument is

something like this …

I do it because it is something I enjoy and do

well.

… the argument does not seem to be a petitio

principii.

3. Identification of the following example hinges on the

meaning of ”grounded.” Circularity occurs if
contextually “grounded” means ”grounded in the
divine”:

“St. James was divinely inspired when he wrote

his epistle, and therefore the story must have
been well grounded.”[44]

F. Finally, it's important to point out that circularity in

explanations and definitions are not fallacies per se.
Nevertheless, vicious circularity in explanation and
definition is uninformative. Arguments are intended to
increase knowledge, whereas explanations function to
increase understanding. Consequently, circularity in
arguments does not increase belief or conviction, but some
kinds of circularity in explanations, if not vicious, can do
so.[45] In the following examples, no fallacy occurs
because the passages are intended as explanations.

18
1. Circularity in the following explanation, however, is
flawed because it produces inappreciable
understanding:

[T]he very conception of the aesthetic object

[i]s that which gives pleasure simply because it
is that it is, not because it is good for
anything.[46]

2. Whereas the following passage could be taken for a

viciously circular argument, it is in context an
informative explanation:

[H]e was a contented and wealthy man —

contented because he was wealthy, and wealthy
because he was contented.[46a]

In senses of the words “wealthy” and “contented” are

different in the last statement of this passage. The
wealth is not monetary but spiritual and the
contentment is not monetary but peace of mind.

Consequently, the passage is not a circular argument

but is a non-circular explanation.

3. Again, it is important to point out no fallacy occurs if

an argument is not present. E.g., the following
passage might appear to be circular, but, instead, the
author declares no matter how well-instructed a
totally self-absorbed person is, that person is not
educated:

“Those people who think only of themselves,

are hopelessly uneducated. They are not
educated, no matter how instructed they may
be.[47]”

The author is not arguing that hoplessly uneducated

people are hopelessly uneducated because they are

19
 hopelessly uneducated regardless of having had much
instruction. Consequently, the petitio principii fallacy
does not occur.

G. A presumed tautologous or analytic statement is said to

beg the question when that statement is being used as a
premise in an argument. E.g., John Locke argues that the
Scholastic doctrine “Thinking is the essence of soul” begs
the question of what is to be proved as to the nature of soul
since the truth of the doctrine is not immediately evident.

Locke uses “beg the question” in this sense when he states

that inasmuch as the Scholastic belief that thinking is the
essence of the soul is not self-evident, the belief begs the
question. That is, the belief elicits the need to prove such
an hypothesis prior to its use as a premise.[48] This
particular use of begging the question is no longer
classified as a petitio principii fallacy in the literature and
in recent logic textbooks.
VIII. The contemporary resurgence of interest into begging the
question stem from Richard Robinson's 1971 paper
distinguishing Aristotle's treatment in the Topics not as a fallacy
but as rule breaking in the dialogue-game of elenchus from
Aristotle's treatment in the Prior Analytics as an instance of
argumentative self-evidence.[49]
A. Walton argues that begging the question cannot be
analyzed solely in terms of the statements used in critical
discussions; the fallacy is best described as a pragmatic
failure of dialogue since those statements' meanings are
contextually determined.[50]
B. Whether an argument is circular or not, then, depends on
the context of the beliefs expressed in the critical
discussion by the disputants about the statements presented
— and does not depend upon the purely formal identity or
equivalence of the statements being discussed.

20
 C. Occurrences of circular argument are somewhat subjective
in these contexts since they are relative to the belief
systems of the disputants. The context is determined by the
dialogue leading up to the presentation of the argument.
Therefore, identification of petitio principii is not just a
formal evaluation of an argument, but is dependent upon
how the premises are established within the context of a
persuasive dialogue.

As Alfred Sidgwick puts it: “What we can always do is

to suspect the presence of a given fallacy, and to seek for
clearer indication of it. But to fasten on the words of the
argument and say confidently that our opponent is begging
the question … is to put ourselves in a needlessly weak
position. Indeed, the charge of begging the question is a
peculiarly difficult one to substantiate.”[51]
IX. Circular reasoning occurs especially in the following
philosophical issues:
A. Free Will/Determinism Debate: To what extent and in what
sense are motives a determining factor in choice and
action. Circular reasoning together with verbal
disagreements and ambiguous phraseology occurs often in
free-will controversies. For example, to explain all actions
in terms of causality is itself presupposing a deterministic
theory.[52]
B. Logical Proofs of Existence: Deductively, the existence of
something cannot be proved from statements which do not
already presuppose existence. As Søren Kierkegard argued,
for example, Napoleon's existence cannot be proved by
arguing …

An [unknown] invaded Russia, lost the Waterloo

campaign, was exiled to Elba, and so on.
Napoleon is the [unknown].
Therefore, Napoleon exists.

21
 The truth of the conclusion “Napoleon exists,” only
logically follows if the [unknown] in the premises is
already presumed to exist in a premise.[53]
C. Deductive Reasoning: Some philosophers have worried
that if logic and mathematics were merely verbal based on
non-empirical statements, it would follow that these forms
of reasoning are instances of petitio principii. For example,
in reasoning from a general statement to a particular
statement subsumed under that general statement, nothing
would be proved since the conclusion would be already
assumed as known. From the statement “All men are
mortal,” if we know Socrates is a man, then it follows he's
mortal. But this conclusion is just a particular instance of
the general statement which subsumes “Socrates as well as
other persons to be mortal.”[54]

If an argument is a valid deductive argument, it's

impossible for the conclusion to be false with true
premises; consequently, it would seem that there can be no
more information in the conclusion than that given from
the outset in the premises. So logicians need an account for
how deductive argumentation can prove something not
already known in the premises themselves.[55]

The nature and definition of begging the question raises

questions about the essential features of the constitution of
an argument. If an argument is defined as having at least
two statements, then begging the question, containing one
statement used twice, would not qualify as an argument at
all.[56]

If an argument is defined as having a minimum of two

premises, then the immediate inferences of formal logic
would not count as arguments.[57] And if a fallacy is
defined as a form of deceptive reasoning then some
instances of begging the question would be fallacies to
some persons but not to others, depending upon who is
22
 deceived.[58] Finally, if a fallacy is defined merely as a
violation of a rule of reasoning and argumentation, then
validity alone would not be a sufficient condition for a
good argument because instances of begging the question
are valid arguments.[59]
D. The Cartesian Cogito Proof: Descartes reasons that since
he is thinking, he exists as a thinking being. Yet,the reason
that Descartes uses to prove his existence cannot include
the fact of his existence. But since Descartes' thinking
seems to presuppose that Descartes exists, the argument
already presupposes his existence in the premise.
Circularity here also has to do with thinking is only reliable
if there is a God. These are a few of the points being
disputed about his arguments in Discourse on Method and
in Meditations.[60]
E. Current applications of the importance of circular
arguments involve the linking of ad verecunidam, ad
hominem, and petitio principii in multi-agent systems of
reasoning for trustworthy sources in artificial
intelligence.[61]

Online Quizzes

Test your understanding of petitio principii, begging the question, and

circular reasoning with the following quizzes:

Petitio Principii Examples Exercise

Fallacies of Presumption Examples Quiz I
Fallacies of Presumption Examples Quiz II
Fallacies of Presumption Examples Quiz III

Very few actual arguments show their circular

character clearly on their face; as a rule the critic

23
has to dig it out from the surrounding verbiage, with
opportunities of discovering meanings that were
never intended.

Alfred Sidgwick, Elementary Logic, (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1914), 147.

Notes
1. What does it mean to beg the question? A.W. Sparkes concludes his discussion of the
historical origin of the term in this way: “If an argument is to be successful, the truth of the
premises must be admitted by both sides. When a disputant asserts a premise, he is, therefore,
asking his opponent to grant it to him. When he asserts the conclusion as one of his premisses,
he is asking his opponent to grant him the truth of the statement whose truth has been
questioned: he is ‘begging the question.’“ [A.W. Sparkes “Begging the Question,” Journal of
the History of Ideas, 27 no. 3 (Jul.-Sept. 1966), 464.]

Note that “question begging” is not in this use related to being prompted to raise a question.
For example, if the premises are irrelevant to the conclusion of an argument, a question might
raised or be elicited as to how the premises prove anything. This would not be an instance of
the fallacy of question-begging. Thus the everyday (now accepted) use of the term question
begging as “something that moves someone to react by asking a specific question” is not what
is meant here in the logical sense of the argument of begging the question.

An example of the non-argumentative use of “beg the question” would be:

“‘Humorous’ is a word as question-begging as ‘artistic,’ and he would be a rash man who

should try to define either.” [Stephen Lucius Gwynn, Irish Books and Irish People (Lytton:
Australia: Talbot Press, 1919), np.]
See “Usage Notes; Beg the Question,” Merriam-Webster https://www.merriam-
webster.com/words-at-play/beg-the-question (accessed 27 Mar. 2017).

In ordinary language use, circularity and question-begging are names for the same fallacy;
nevertheless, many logicians define them differently. In general, petitio principii or circularity
is a formal argument where the conclusion is either equivalent to the premise or to one of the
premises, or whose presence is necessary to the premise or necessary to prove one of the
premises. In question begging, the premise and conclusion are logically equivalent or the
premise implies the conclusion as a immediate inference. Superfluous premises might be
present in either case. Thus, although instances of petitio principii (circularity) are
distinguishable from instances of begging the question, on these definitions, some instances
can be appropriately described as either mode of argument. But, then again, this distinction is
not generally agreed upon in the current literature. See, for example, Douglas Walton,
“Editor's Introduction,”Argumentation 8 no. 3 ( August 1994), 215-216.
doi:10.1007/bf0071118810.1.1.87.3853↩

24
2. Aristotle, Prior Analytics trans. E.M. Edhill in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard
McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941), 65a 10-15. Also, Aristotle writes, “[W]henever
a man tries to prove what is not self-evident by means of itself, then he begs the original
question. This may be done by assuming what is in question at once; it is also possible to
make a transition to other things which would naturally be proved through the thesis
proposed, and demonstrate it through them.” Prior Analytics, 64b 36-40.↩

3. David H. Sanford, “Begging the Question,” Analysis 32 no. 6 (Jun. 1972), 197-199.
DOI:10.2307/3327724↩

4. David Ross, Aristotle 5th ed. (London: Routledge, 1995), 37.↩

5. “… not all circular argument commit the fallacy of begging the question.” [Douglas N.
Walton, “Begging the Question as a Pragmatic Fallacy,” Synthese 100 no. 1 (Feb. 1994), 96.]
Smith recognizes the distinction between immediate and mediate circular arguments but gives
little importance to the distinction. Michael P. Smith, “Virtuous Circles,” The Southern
Journal of Philosophy 25 no.2 (Jun. 1987), 207.↩

6. Michael Wilcockson et al., A Student's Guide to A2 Religious Studies, (London: Rhinegold

Publishing, 2005), 52.↩

7. Steven Nadler, The Philosopher, the Priest and the Painter: A Portrait of
Descartes (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2013), 30.↩

8. The question of circular reasoning is an active area of inquiry. Various theories are
proposed from various contexts so that notions of epistemic, logical, pragmatic, dialectical,
and functional are studied. Proposed accounts of circularity invariably depend on the contexts
of formal or dialogue types. Two major current approaches are the epistemic (that of proving
belief) and pragma-dialectical (that of devising procedural or rule-governed discussion).↩

9. J.R.T. Lamont writes that this argument is not circular since if Mr. Jones of the Water
Conservation Board sends a letter, then Mr. Jones exists on the basis of the letter having been
written so likewise God exists on the basis of the Bible having been written. In fact, all that
can be known without further evidence is that the letter and the Bible have been written — by
whom, does not follow from the existence of the writings. [J.R.T. Lamont “Believing That
God Exists Because the Bible Says So,” Faith and Philosophy 13 no. 1 (Jan. 1994)) 121-124.]
Gary Colwell also explores some contexts in which the non-circularity of such arguments
depend upon the dialectical circumstances in which they are given. [Gary Colwell, God, The
Bible and Circularity 11 no. 2 ( Spring 1989), 61-73]. Walton also examines this argument
extensively from a pragmatic perspective. [Douglas Walton, “Begging the Question in
Arguments Based on Testimony,” Argumentation 19 no. 1 (Mar. 2005), 97-99 and 101-106.]
What these accounts seem to overlook is that the circularity of such arguments, from a logical
point of view, is due to the inherent circularity of existence proofs.↩

10. For example, Copi writes, “It is customary to reserve the term ‘fallacy’ for arguments that,
although incorrect, are psychologically persuasive.” I.M. Copi and Carl Cohen, Introduction
to Logic 9th ed. (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1994), 115.↩

25
11. Bronislaw Malinowski, “The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Languages,” in C.K.
Ogden and I.A. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning (London: Kegan Paul, 1936), Supplement
I: 296-366.↩

12. Guy de Maupassant, “An Old Man,” in Selected Stories, trans. Roger Colet (Franklin
Center, Pennsylvania: Franklin Library, 1983), 298-299.↩

13. H. Schucman and W. Thetford, eds., Course in Miracles (Ancient Wisdom Publications,
2008), 86.↩

14. Origen, Origen Contra Celsum in The Writings of Origen, trans. Frederick Crombie, Vol.
2 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark 1872), 227.↩

15. Jeremy Bentham, The Book of Fallacies in The Works of Jeremy Bentham, Part VIII
(Edinburgh: W. Tait, 1839), 436.↩

16. Wiliam Stanley Jevons, The Elements of Logic (New York: Butler, Sheldon & Company,
1883), 174.↩ Douglas Walton notes after analyzing a similar argument, probably based on
this one by Jevons, that circularity occurs only if “heresy” is persuasively defined whereby
“heresy” means ”any view or statement that is opposed to official church doctrines of the
time.” [Douglas Walton, Ethical Agumentation (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003) 72]
In such a case, the argument would be contextually circular for adherents of those church
doctrines.

17. Christopher Eddy, “Letters: One Tree to Another,” London Review of Books 39 no. 6 (16
Mar. 2017), 4. ↩

18. Adam Sadell, “Letters: One Tree to Another,” London Review of Books 39 no. 7 (30 Mar.
2017), 4.↩

19. W. Stanley Jevons,Elementary Lessons in Logic, (London: Macmillan and Co., 1895),
181.↩

20. Richard Whatley, Logic, 2nd ed. (London: John Joseph Griffin & Co., 1849), 76.↩

21. [Walton, Argumentation, 87.] This example exhibits the problem outlined by Alfred
Sidgwick of interpreting discourse within a context based on unwarranted interpretation. His
principle of access anticipated the dialogical structural approach taken a century later. [See
also Douglas N. Walton and Erik C.W. Krabbe, Commitment in Dialogue: Basic Concepts of
Interpersonal Reasoning (Albany, New York: SUNY Press, 1995).]↩

22. Alex C. Michalos, Improving Your Reasoning (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.,
1970), 28.↩

23. Fredy Cante and Hartmut Quehl, Handbook of Research on Transitional Justice and
Peace Building in Turbulent Regions (Hershey, Pennsylvania: Information Science Reference,
2016), l310.↩

24 Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, trans. Joseph Ward Swain
(1915; repr., Mineola, N.Y.: Dover Publications, Inc, 2008), 70.↩

26
25. Durkheim, 223.↩

26. Durkheim, 94.↩

27. Louis Agassiz, An Essay on Classification (London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans,
and Roberts, 1859), 75-78. ↩

28. Sir Francis Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, vol. 2 (London: John
Murray, 1888), 333.↩

29. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Vol. 2 (New York: Dover
Publications, 1959), 208.↩ This source of this argument according to Hobbes is the medieval
schools of Law. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan ed., G.A.J. Rogers and Karl Schuhmann, Vol 2
(New York: Continuum International, 2005), 115.

30. Jan Cookson, God Is … (Bloomington, Indiana: WestBow Press, 2013), 256.↩

31. Ernest J. Chave, Personality Development in Children (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press,
1937), 151.↩

32. E.g., J. N. Keynes, Formal Logic, 4th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 426. As
reported in J. D. Mabbott, “Two Notes on Syllogism,“ Mind, New Series, 48 no. 191 (July,
1939), 328.↩

33. Translation from the source:

Opium facit dormire.

A quoi respondeo,
Quia est in eo
Virtus dormitiva,
Cujus est natura
Sensus assoupire.

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin dit Moliére, Le Malade Imaginaire (Act III, Interlude III) in Oeuvres,
Vol. 6 (Paris: P. Didot, 1794), 505.

Although this example is sometimes cited as a tautological explanation, [William Stanley

Jevons, Elementary Lesson in Logic (London: Macmillan and Co., 1870), 270] the
argumentative petitio principii was interpreted by Charles Peirce to display a pragmatic
difference between terms as a difference of “subjectal abstraction” (constructing a subject out
of a predicate). [Charles Sanders Peirce, The New Elements of Mathematics, v.
III/2 Mathematical Miscellanea, ed. Carolyn Eisele (The Hague: Mouton Publishers, 1976),
917].

And some philosophers of science see in examples like Moliére's an inference to the nature of
something from its effects (which might, or might not, be vacuous) and so oppose the thesis
of the “causal inefficacy of dispositions.” But, on the account taken here, a dispositional
property is considered necessarily connected to its causal relation, and so the Doctor's
expressed logical or grammatical relation does not prove or explain anything. The concept of
a power is necessarily contained in the concept of an effect.

27
See also Stephen P. Turner and Paul A. Roth, The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of the
Social Sciences (London: John Wiley & Sons, 2008), 23.

Also, relevant in examples such as these is the contrast between an argument and an
explanation.[33]

34. Ian Hacking, The Taming of Chance (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990), 140.
Hacking concludes, “To the innocent Engel's law looks like a tautology. Perhaps that is as it
should be, given Engel's own scepticism about the very concept of statistical laws. Anything
that did get called a law would be the consequence of a definition, not an inductive
regularity.”↩

35. Sigmund Freud, The Interpretations of Dreams (New York: Avon, 1966), 185.↩

36. Quite a few debating textbooks extend the application of petitio principii to mean as
well ignoratio elenchi or irrelevant conclusion. Alfred Sidgwick states some forms of petitio
principii “would come almost equally well under the designation ignoratio elenchi (or
misrepresenting the point at issue).” Alfred Sidwick, The Application of Logic (London:
Macmillan and Co., 1910), 217.↩

37. Gonzalo Rodriguez-Fraile, A New Paradigm of Reality (Madrid: Foundation for

Consciousness Development, 2015), np.↩.

38. Adapted from Frank Bumb, “[Police Chief] Top Cop No More," Index-Journal 95 no. 108
(November 15, 2013), 1A.↩

39. Chen Cheng-Yih, “Magnetism in Chinese Culture,” in Encyclopaedia of the History of

Science, Technology and Medicine in Non-Wester Cultures, ed. Helaine Selin, 2nd. ed., Vol I
(New York: Springer Science and Business Media, 2008), 1263.↩

40. E.g., Roy Wood Sellars conflates the two fallacies in his discussion of question-begging
epithets. Roy Wood Sellars, The Essentials of Logic (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
1917), 150.↩

“Aparkalypse Now,” The Economist 423 no. 9035 (8 Apr. 2017), 12.↩

41. Janet Kuypers, The Boss Lady's Editorials (Gurnee, Illinois: Scars Publications, 2005),
68.↩

42. Kuypers, 68.↩

43. Thomas Chubb, A Collection of Tracts on Various Subjects, Vol. 2 (London: T. Cox, 1743
), 32. ↩

44. See Ulrike Hann, “The Problem of Circularity in Evidence, Argument, and
Explanation,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6 no. 2 (2011).↩

45. Karsten Harries, “The Need for Architecture,” in Architecture: Celebrating the Past,
Designing the Future (New York: Visual Reference Publications, 2008), 19.↩

28
46. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 13th. ed. (London: William
Tegg & Co. 1849), 56.↩

46a. Russell H. Conwell, Acres of Diamonds (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1915), 4.↩

47. Nicholas Murray Butler as quoted in Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence
People (1936 New York: Pocket Books Simon & Schuster Inc., 1964), 88.↩

48. Russel H. Conwell, “Acres of Diamonds,” in “Famous Speeches in History,” Emerson

Kent.com (accessed 19 Apr. 2017).↩

49. Richard Robinson, “Begging the Question,” Analysis 31 no. 4 (Mar. 1971), 113-117.
References for Aristotle: Topics 16b 31-33 and Prior Analytics B 16.↩

50. Douglas N. Watson, “Begging the Question As a Pragmatic Fallacy,” Synthese 100 no. 1
(Feb. 1994), 95-131.↩

51. Alfred Sidgwick, The Application of Logic (Macmillan and Co., 1910), 207.↩

52. Some of the elements of circular reasoning invoked on both sides of the debate are
examined in dialogue form by Gary Colwell, “Freedom, Determinism, and Circular
Reasoning,” Argumentation 8 no. 3 (Aug. 1994), 251-263.↩

53. See the discussion “Søren Kierkegaard, ‘God's Existence Cannot Be

Proved,’‘ Introduction to Philosophical Inquiry Online ↩

54. See the discussion Morris F. Cohen and Ernest Nagel, A Introduction to Logic and
Scientific Method, (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1934), 177-179↩

55. A summary of some of the difficulties is provided by Ian Rumfiftt, The Boundary Stones
of Thought: An Essay in the Philosophy of Logic (Oxford University Press, 2015), 56-65.↩

56. See Dale Jacquette, “Logical Dimensions of Question-Begging Argument,” American

Philosophical Quarterly 30 no. 4 (Oct. 1998). 317-327.↩

57. Robert Hoffman, “On Begging the Question at Any Time,” Analysis 32 no. 2 (Dec. 1971),
51.↩

58. Hans Vilhelm Hansen, “The Straw Thing of Fallacy Theory: The Standard Definition of
‘Fallacy,’“ Argumentation 16 no. 2(June 2002), 140-142.↩

59. C.L. Hamlin, Fallacies (London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1970), 14.↩

60. See for example Arnold Berleant, “Discussion on the Circularity of the
Cogito,” Philosophy & Phenomenological Research 26 no. 3 (Mar. 1966), 431-433.↩

61. Walton, Douglas. Witness Testimony Evidence: Argumentation, Artificial Intelligence and
Law (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008).↩

29
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