On Tuesday 21 June 2005 14:45, Charly Baker wrote:
On Monday June 20 2005 9:12 pm, Mike Dewhirst wrote:
Jim Sabatke wrote: I feel the same, and just follow each lists' rules (if it has any), but
there are times I really do like top posting. That is when there is a very large included part of the previous message that should have been snipped and a short top post. It's a lot easier than scrolling through all the extra stuff. Of course that begs the question, isn't that a snipping problem.
Who cares about top or bottom?
Begging the question is the real problem. It does not mean "invite the question". Begging the question is a fool's debating trick. Like lifting yourself by your bootstraps. Note - I didn't say bootstrapping - which as we all know is now a perfectly valid conventional use of that term in our context.
BTQ is relying logically on something which still needs to be proved (or successfully argued in a debate).
This list urgently needs a convention on BTQ. Do you want it to mean ...
1 implying or inviting an unasked question
2 relying on an unproven argument to prove that argument
Yes, number 2. You're dead right. BTQ is a logical fallacy, not a posh way of saying 'makes us ask'. Well done Charly.
I'm with you. We who practise logic have a responsibility to respect its lexicon. "Question" in BTQ doesn't refer to an interrogative as it does in "raising the question", but rather it refers to the proposition under debate, as "putting the question" does in parliamentary usage. Those who use "beg the question" as if it were synonymous with "raise the question" are following the mindless herd who mistakenly believe this to be a more sophisticated usage. It isn't. It just relects another popular but ignorant misconception.
Charly Baker