My dear Chris--
Even if the word "world" meant "earth" and the word "round" meant
"spherical", I don't think your example is an example of petitio principii,
unless you also assume that the world "known" actually means "is", which is
news to me.
Here's a real example of petitio principii from Vygotsky, who actually
trained as a lawyer at Moscow University. Vygotsky is talking about Stern's
theory that children form the concept of language between three and five
(similar to what Chomsky says).
Самый главный недостаток теории Штерна, по-моему, допущенная в ней
известная логическая ошибка, которая получила название в логике «petitio
principii». Грубо это можно перевести «задом наперед» или «телега впряжена
впереди лошади». Ведь суть дела заключается в следующем: вместо того чтобы
сказать, каким образом возникает у ребенка общее понятие о речи,
допускается, что оно с самого начала выводится ребенком. Это такая же
ошибка, как та, когда думали, что язык возник из взаимного договора, что
люди жили врозь, никогда не могли сговориться, а потом собрались вместе и
условились: «Давайте это называть так, а это так». В чем недостаток этой
теории? Она предполагает, что значение языка существовало до языка, что
представление о языке и выгодах, которые он дает, существовало до
возникновения языка.
" he most serious flaw in the Stern theory, in my view, is that it assumes
a well-known logical fallacy, which has received the name “petitio
principii” in logic. We might translate this coarsely as “ass backwards” or
“putting the cart before the horse.” The essence of the affair consists in
the following: instead of saying how in the child there is formed a general
conception of speech, it is assumed that it is present from the very
beginning in the child. This is the same fallacy as if one imagines that
speech orginated from some mutual agreement, that people lived separately,
could never come to agreement, and then got together and agreed, “This will
be called such and such, and that will be so-and-so”. What is the flaw in
this theory? It assumes that the meaning of language exists before
language, that the idea of language and the benefits it gives exists before
the emergence of language."
Speaking of Chomsky--has it occurred to you that two big advantages of the
"subjacency duplex" are:
a) It recycles a bit of terminology from "subjacency principle" from
Chomsky's Government and Binding theory (I think the principle had
something to do with wh-movement, a non-problem for systemicists who
understand how Theme works in English).
b) More importantly, it recycles the key concept of "Merge" from Chomsky's
Minimalist Programme!
dk.
2024년 4월 5일 (금) 오전 6:56, Dr ChRIS CLÉiRIGh <c.cleirigh@xxxxxxxxx>님이 작성:
Dear Scholars,
This week's informal fallacy is one that is often mistakenly invoked.
In classical rhetoric <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetoric> and logic
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic>, *begging the question
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question>* or *assuming the
conclusion* (Latin <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_language>: *petītiō
principiī*) is an informal fallacy
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy> that occurs when an
argument's premises assume the truth <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth> of
the conclusion <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_consequence>.
Historically, begging the question refers to a fault in a dialectical
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical> argument
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument> in which the speaker assumes
some premise <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premise> that has not been
demonstrated to be true. In modern usage, it has come to refer to an
argument in which the premises assume the conclusion without supporting it.
This makes it more or less synonymous with circular reasoning
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circular_reasoning>.
Some examples are:
- "People have known for thousands of years that the earth is round.
Therefore, the earth is round."
- "Drugs are illegal so they must be bad for you. Therefore, we
ought not legalize drugs because drugs are bad for you."
Informal misuse of the phrase "begs the question" also occurs with an
entirely dissimilar sense in place of "prompts a question" or "raises a
question"
dr chris cléirigh
*Most of the evil of the world comes about **not out of evil motives, *
*but somebody saying **'get with the program, **be a team player'.*
— Philip Zimbardo
====================================
Some Of My Sites
Review of *Subjacency Duplexes* <https://subjacencyduplex.blogspot.com/>
Review of *Modelling Paralanguage Using SFS*
<https://modelling-paralanguage.blogspot.com/>
Review of *Axial Relations* <https://axial-relations.blogspot.com/>
Learning From Mistakes
<http://thoughts-that-cross-my-mind.blogspot.com.au/>
Primate Dominance Strategies <https://attitude-in-sfl.blogspot.com/>
The Culture of the SFL Community
<https://whatliesbeneathsfl.blogspot.com/>
Intellectual Applications of SFL Theory
<http://informingthoughts.blogspot.com.au/>
The Opposite of Social Media <https://mental-projection.blogspot.com/>
====================================
