One of the most common strategies in philosophical dispute is that of accusing the opponent of begging the question, that is, of assuming or presupposing what is to be proved. Thus, it happens quite often that the credibility of a philosophical argument is infected by the suspicion of begging the question. In many cases it is an open question whether the suspicion is grounded, and the answer lurks somewhere in the dark of what the proponent of the argument does not (...) say. This is why it may take years, or even centuries, before the begging of the question is brought to light. But few philosophers would deny that once it is established that a certain argument begs the question, that argument has to be rejected without hesitation: question-begging arguments are bad arguments, hence one should not appeal to them. Logicians traditionally classify begging the question as a fallacy, that is, as a bad reasoning that seems good at first sight. The fallacy is known under the name of petitio principii. This paper originated in our dissatisfaction with definitions of petitio principii found here and there in logic textbooks. Although it is uncontroversial that there is something wrong with begging the question, it is not clear from those definitions what is wrong. (shrink)

In this paper I develop an account of petitio principii (the fallacy sometimes also called ‘vicious circularity’, or ‘begging the question’) which has two crucial features: it employs the notion of doxastic justification, and it takes circularity to be relative to an evidential state. According to my account, an argument will be circular relative to an evidential state if and only if having doxastic justification for the conclusion is necessary, for a subject in that evidential state, to have (...) doxastic justification for the premisses. I compare the account to some existing ones, and claim some advantages. I then rebut an objection which threatens to undermine the importance of one of those advantages. This account seems to shed new light on the old problem of characterizing petitio principii. It avoids the two obvious problems which any account of this phenomenon must face: being too narrow, for example by leaving out all arguments in which the conclusion does not appear among the premisses, and being too wide, making all valid arguments circular. (shrink)

This paper investigates in how far a theory of dialectical structures sheds new light on the old problem of giving a satisfying account of the fallacy of petitio principii, or begging the question. It defends that (i) circular argumentation on the one hand and petitio principii on the other hand are two distinct features of complex argumentation, and that (ii) it is impossible to make general statements about the defectiveness of an argumentation that exhibits these features. (...) Such an argumentation, in contrast, has to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. “Petitio principii”, this paper thence suggests, is one name for, in fact, a multitude of different and quite complex dialectical situations which require specific analysis and evaluation. (shrink)

It is a common complaint that the syllogism commits a petitio principii. This is discussed extensively by John Stuart Mill in ‘A System of Logic’ [1882. Eighth Edition, New York: Harper and Brothers] but is much older, being reported in Sextus Empiricus in chapter 17 of the ‘Outlines of Pyrrhonism’ [1933. in R. G. Bury, Works, London and New York: Loeb Classical Library]. Current wisdom has it that Mill gives an account of the syllogism that avoids being a (...) petitio by virtue of construing the universal premise as an inference-rule. I will show that both the problem and the role of inference-rules in its solution have been misunderstood. Inference-rules have very little to do with this problem, and I will argue further that nothing is gained with regard to this problem by the introduction of inference-rules in preference to premises. (shrink)

L’hypothèse d’un trompeur suppose la validité du critère des idées claires et distinctes. Le doute vient de ce que notre créateur peut nous avoir faits tels que, quelque soin que nous prenions d’atteindre des idées claires et distinctes, ce qui nous semble clair puisse ne pas l’être. Ce doute est fondé sur l’ignorance de la nature de notre créateur, et on peut y échapper, en appliquant le critère à la question : « Notre créateur peut-il nous tromper? » Bien que (...) le doute ne puisse être que rétrospectif, il n’a rien à voir avec l’exactitude de la mémoire. (shrink)

Abstract Few theoretical insights have emerged from the extensive literature discussions of petitio principii argument. In particular, the pattern of petitio analysis has largely been one of movement between the two sides of a dichotomy, that of form and content. In this paper, I trace the basis of this dichotomy to a dualist conception of mind and world. I argue for the rejection of the form/content dichotomy on the ground that its dualist presuppositions generate a reductionist analysis (...) of certain concepts which are central to the analysis of petitio argument. I contend, for example, that no syntactic relation can assimilate within its analysis the essentially holistic nature of a notion like justification. In this regard, I expound a form of dialectical criticism which has been frequently employed in the philosophical arguments of Hilary Putnam. Here the focus of analysis is upon the way in which the proponent of a position proceeds to explain or argue for his/her own particular theses. My conclusion points to the use of such dialectic within future analyses of petitio principii. (shrink)

In chapter 3, we reflected on the view that the fallacies on the traditional list are inherently dialectical. The answer proposed there was that, with the possible exception of, e.g., begging the question and many questions, they are not. The aim of the present chapter is to cancel theispossibility by showing that begging the question and many questions are not in fact dialectical fallacies. The reason for this is not that question-begging and many questions aren’t (at least dominantly) dialectical practices. (...) The reason is that, dialectical or not, they are not fallacies. That begging the question, BQ for short, is a fallacy is an idea which originates with Aristotle. Given logic’s already long history, it should not be surprising that Aristotle’s views of these matters have in some ways been superseded. But the traditional view retains the original connection between conception and instantiation. Whereas BQ in Aristotle’s sense is said to be a fallacy in Aristotle’s sense, so too is BQ in the modern sense said to be a fallacy in the modern (i.e., EAUI) sense.[1] As currently conceived of, BQ and fallacies can be characterized in the following ways. (shrink)

If one looks to the current textbook lore for reliable taxonomic and analytical information about the petitio principii, one is met with conceptual disarray and much too much nonsense. The present writers have recently attempted to furnish the beginnings of a theoretical reconstruction of this fallacy which is at once faithful to its formidable complexity yet useful as guide for its detection and avoidance. The fact is that the petitio has had a lengthy and interesting history, and (...) in this paper we shall want to explore certain features of its development, such as it may have been. The principal origins of the concept of circular argument are to be found in Aristotle. The Aristotelian doctrine recurs with variations in the sophismata literature of the middle ages and in logic texts and manuals right up to the present day. (shrink)

If one looks to the current textbook lore for reliable taxonomic and analytical information about the petitio principii, one is met with conceptual disarray and much too much nonsense. The present writers have recently attempted to furnish the beginnings of a theoretical reconstruction of this fallacy which is at once faithful to its formidable complexity yet useful as guide for its detection and avoidance. The fact is that the petitio has had a lengthy and interesting history, and (...) in this paper we shall want to explore certain features of its development, such as it may have been. The principal origins of the concept of circular argument are to be found in Aristotle. The Aristotelian doctrine recurs with variations in the sophismata literature of the middle ages and in logic texts and manuals right up to the present day. (shrink)

Traditionally, logicians construed fallacies as mistakes in inference, as things that looked like good (i.e., deductively valid) arguments but were not. Two fallacies stood out like a sore thumb on this view of fallacies: the fallacy of many questions (because it does not even look like a good argument, or any kind of argument) and the fallacy of petitio principii (because it looks like and is a good argument). The latter is the concern of this paper. One possible (...) response is to say that the tradition is right about the concept of fallacy but wrong about its extension: petitio principii is not a fallacy. If the only proper ways to criticize an argument are to say that it is invalid or that it is unsound, and petitio principii is not criticisable on either of these counts, then calling it a fallacy is tantamount to saying we should prefer invalid or unsound arguments Robinson (Analysis, 31(4): 114 ,1971). I will present a third way to logically criticize arguments and show that fallacious instances of petitio principii are so criticisable while other instances of petitio principii are non-fallacious; hence, this fallacy is not a reductio of the Standard Treatment. It is not my intention in this paper to come out on the side of any of the competing theories—the Standard Treatment, the dialectical theories, and the epistemic theories—as general theories of fallacy. I show only that petitio principii can be handled by something closely resembling the Standard Treatment in so far as that, on entirely logistical principles, there can be made a distinction such that circular arguments form at best a degenerate kind of argument. Circular arguments look like good arguments but are not, not because they are deductively invalid (which they are not) but because they do not deserve to be called arguments at all. (shrink)

Being needs a rectification, that is the compensation of being for Being, which was only assumed, but not substantiated by reason of the influence of the logical fallacy petitio principii and due to the loss of the absolute status of the verb to be from the Greek times to Heidegger's project of ontology. The annulment of the Greek status of the verb to be caused an absolute disorientation of being regarding its own object and method of action, which (...) ultimately led to the indifference of the ontological background as such. As a result, being did not turn into the smallest semantic unit, like the active parts of speech, but its semantic content expanded to infinity in an eclectic manner, and therefore, being eventually lost the autonomy and limits of its own phenomenological manifestation. This article, which is a part of a larger study at the same time, is based on the idea that negativity is presented as an original characteristic of being in the very first of the judgments about being, namely being is. It turns out that being exists, but only within the utterance, while it is not directly presented, what means it is deprived with predicative features peculiar to it exclusively, except for such one: being is/exists (but) not (only) as something or being is not (only) as something. The aim of the article is to define the negative copula of being as the subject of Heidegger's project of radical ontology, only sketched in the Marburg lectures of 1927. Besides, the current revival of scientific interest in the direction of subjectivity and spatial localizations of Nothing requires the confirmation of its being-nature, that logically follows from acquisition of the negativity-feature by being-copula, and then –the interpreting of negation as a solely ontological mode of action among the perspectives of the transition to a new beginning, which occupied all scientific research of Heidegger’s later thought. In view of the above, the relevance of copula-studies is only increasing. (shrink)

Several of the so-called “fallacies” in Aristotle are not in fact mistaken inference-types, but mistakes or breaches of rules in the questioning games which were practiced in the Academy and in the Lyceum. Hence the entire Aristotelian theory of “fallacies” ought to be studied by reference to the author's interrogative model of inquiry, based on his theory of questions and answers, rather than as a part of the theory of inference. Most of the “fallacies” mentioned by Aristotle can in fact (...) be diagnosed by means of the interrogative model, including petitio principii, multiple questions, “babbling’, etc., and so can Aristotle's alleged anticipation of the fallacy of argumentum ad hominem. The entire Aristotelian conception of inquiry is an interrogative one. Deductive conclusions caught Aristotle's attention in the form of answers that every rational interlocutor must give, assuming only his own earlier answers. Several features of Aristotle's methodology can be understood by means of the interrogative model, including the role of endoxa in it. Theoretically, there is also considerable leeway as to whether “fallacies” are conceived of as mistakes in questioning or as breaches of the rules that govern questioning games. (shrink)

The article analyses the meta- epistemological problem of the justification of a theory of knowledge. The first section is dedicated to the morphological reconstruction of the problem, the second presents a diagnosis of the problem in terms of a metatheoretical and logically non- contradictory "petitio principii" and the third delineates the limits within which strategies for the treatment of the problem could be elaborated.

Since its inception in the work on fallacies of Charles Hamblin, formal dialectic has been the object of an unparalleled level of optimism concerning the potential of its analytical contribution to fallacy inquiry. This optimism has taken the form of a rapid proliferation of formal dialectical studies of arguments in general and fallacious arguments in particular under the auspices of theorists such as Jim Mackenzie and John Woods and Douglas Walton, to name but a few. Notwithstanding the interest in, and (...) the hopes for, a formal dialectical analysis of the fallacies, such an analysis, I will demonstrate subsequently, leads to much unintelligibility in fallacy inquiry. The context of my argument will be the philosophical views of Hilary Putnam, particularly Putnam's claim that when we theorise in relation to rationality, the unintelligibility of the conception of rationality to emerge from this theoretical process can be traced to the circumscription of rationality within this theoretical process. I charge formal dialectic with effecting a similar circumscription of argumentative rationality, a circumscription that, I will claim, is generative of unintelligibility in formal dialectical analyses of the fallacies. In this case, the context for my claims will be the formal dialectical analyses of Walton and Batten, Rescher, Hamblin, Mackenzie and Hintikka, primarily in relation to the petitio principii fallacy. My conclusion examines a number of the reasons, both historical and conceptual, which have made it seem that it is possible to fully circumscribe the notion of argumentative rationality. (shrink)

In recent and not so recent years, fallacy theory has sustained numerous challenges, challenges which have seen the theory charged with lack of systematicity as well as failure to deliver significant insights into its subject matter. In the following discussion, I argue that these criticisms are subordinate to a more fundamental criticism of fallacy theory, a criticism pertaining to the lack of intelligibility of this theory. The charge of unintelligibility against fallacy theory derives from a similar charge against philosophical theories (...) of truth and rationality developed by Hilary Putnam. I examine how Putnam develops this charge in the case of the conception of rationality pursued by logical positivism. Following that examination, I demonstrate the significance of this charge for how we proceed routinely to analyse one informal fallacy, the fallacy of petitio principii. Specifically, I argue that the significance of this charge lies in its issuance of a rejection of the urge to theorise in fallacy inquiry in general and petitio inquiry in particular. My conclusion takes the form of guidelines for the post-theoretical pursuit of fallacy inquiry. (shrink)

We examine in detail three classic reasoning fallacies, that is, supposedly ``incorrect'' forms of argument. These are the so-called argumentam ad ignorantiam, the circular argument or petitio principii, and the slippery slope argument. In each case, the argument type is shown to match structurally arguments which are widely accepted. This suggests that it is not the form of the arguments as such that is problematic but rather something about the content of those examples with which they are typically (...) justified. This leads to a Bayesian reanalysis of these classic argument forms and a reformulation of the conditions under which they do or do not constitute legitimate forms of argumentation. (shrink)

One crucial part of the Aristotle´s discussion of the principle of non-contradiction in Metaphysics IV 4 is his notion of semainein hen, which must be carefully distinguished from the closely connected notion of semainein kath´ henos. The Aristotelian proof is located at 1006b28-34 and it is argued that it does not suppose any bit of essentialism nor does it contain any petitio principii; some improvements are further proposed to the current translations.

The fallacy of many questions or the complex question, popularized by the sophism ‘Have you stopped beating your spouse?’ (when a yes-or-no answer is required), is similar to the fallacy of begging the question orpetitio principii. Douglas N. Walton inBegging the Question has recently argued that the two forms are alike in trying unfairly to elicit an admission from a dialectical opponent without meeting burden of proof, but distinct because of the circularity of question-begging argument and noncircularity of many (...) questions. I offer a reconstruction of the many questions fallacy according to which it is just as circular as begging the question, concluding that many questions begs the question. The same analysis contradicts Walton's claim that questions can beg the question, drawing a distinction between questions as the instruments of question-begging, and as vehicles for categorical noninterrogative presuppositions that beg the question. (shrink)

The concept of burden of proof is used in a wide range of discourses, from philosophy to law, science, skepticism, and even in everyday reasoning. This paper provides an analysis of the proper deployment of burden of proof, focusing in particular on skeptical discussions of pseudoscience and the paranormal, where burden of proof assignments are most poignant and relatively clear-cut. We argue that burden of proof is often misapplied or used as a mere rhetorical gambit, with little appreciation of the (...) underlying principles. The paper elaborates on an important distinction between evidential and prudential varieties of burdens of proof, which is cashed out in terms of Bayesian probabilities and error management theory. Finally, we explore the relationship between burden of proof and several (alleged) informal logical fallacies. This allows us to get a firmer grip on the concept and its applications in different domains, and also to clear up some confusions with regard to when exactly some fallacies (ad hominem, ad ignorantiam, and petitio principii) may or may not occur. (shrink)

More than a century ago, G. E. Moore famously attempted to refute ethical naturalism by offering the so-called open question argument (OQA), also charging that all varieties of ethical naturalism commit the naturalistic fallacy. Although there is consensus that OQA and the naturalistic-fallacy charge both fail, OQA is sometimes vindicated, but only as an argument against naturalistic semantic analyses. The naturalistic-fallacy charge, by contrast, usually finds no takers at all. This paper provides new grounds for an OQA thus restricted. But (...) it aims chiefly at vindicating a version of the naturalistic fallacy, „the semantic-naturalist fallacy‟ (SNF), that we think defensible. We first argue that the openness of the question OQA raises against such analyses hinges on self-ascriptive, comparative judgments of content, which may be considered a priori warranted. We then provide independent reasons for the claim that the sort of mistake committed by naturalistic analyses in fact amounts to a pragmatic fallacy of a kind familiar in petitio principii and other forms of viciously circular inference. Of interest here are naturalistic analyses of ethical terms or concepts, not of properties. Our OQA (OQA*) raises an objection to the former. For no such semantic analyses can get off the ground unless moral terms are content-equivalent to purely descriptive terms, which amounts to saying that they must instantiate the same semantic types. Suppose „good‟ is the analysandum and „pleasure maximizing‟ the analysans (whichever purely descriptive term or terms would turn out to be the correct descriptive analysis of the target analysandum) of a certain semantic analysis. The claim that such terms are content-equivalent appears to be open to doubt on a priori grounds. After 1 all, whether one‟s own tokens of „good‟ and „pleasure maximizing‟ have/don‟t have the same content is a first-person, comparative judgment of content. Evaluating the proposed analysis requires, then, a self-ascriptive, comparative judgment of content.1 Judgments of this sort are thought to have a special epistemic status, since they seem grounded in neither evidence nor inference.. (shrink)

This study offers a new analysis of the last argument of Plato's Phaedo for the immortality of the soul. Interpretations of this argument and especially of the last section have differed considerably. Judgements on its value have usually been adverse. One scholar speaks of the ‘screen of unreal argument’ which concludes the proof, and writes that ‘from the standpoint of logic the argument has petered out into futility’. Another describes the final stage of the proof as ‘a blatant petitio (...) principii’. A third remarks that the conclusion follows ‘if we do not look too closely’. (shrink)

Having, as it is generally agreed, failed to destroy the computational conception of mind with the G\"{o}delian attack he articulated in his {\em The Emperor's New Mind}, Penrose has returned, armed with a more elaborate and more fastidious G\"{o}delian case, expressed in and 3 of his {\em Shadows of the Mind}. The core argument in these chapters is enthymematic, and when formalized, a remarkable number of technical glitches come to light. Over and above these defects, the argument, at best, is (...) an instance of either the fallacy of denying the antecedent, the fallacy of {\em petitio principii}, or the fallacy of equivocation. More recently, writing in response to his critics in the electronic journal {\em Psyche}, Penrose has offered a G\"{o}delian case designed to improve on the version presented in {\em SOTM}. But this version is yet again another failure. In falling prey to the errors we uncover, Penrose's new G\"{o}delian case is unmasked as the same confused refrain J.R. Lucas initiated 35 years ago. (shrink)

. Remarkably, despite the tremendous success of axiomatic set-theory in mathematics, logic and meta-mathematics, e.g., model-theory, two philosophical worries about axiomatic set-theory as the adequate catch of the set-concept keep haunting it. Having dealt with one worry in a previous paper in this journal, we now fulfil a promise made there, namely to deal with the second worry. The second worry is the Skolem Paradox and its ensuing Skolemite skepticism. We present a comparatively novel and simple analysis of the argument (...) of the Skolemite skeptic, which will reveal a general assumption concerning the meaning of the set-concept (we call it Connexion M). We argue that the Skolemite skeptics argument is a petitio principii and that consequently we find ourselves in a dialectical situation of stalemate.Few (if any) working set-theoreticians feel a tension – let alone see a paradox – between, on the one hand, what the Löwenheim–Skolem theorems and related results seem to be telling us about the set-concept, and, on the other hand, their uncompromising and successful use of the set-concept and their continuing enthusiasm about it, in other words: their lack of skepticism about the set-concept. Further, most (if not all) working settheoreticians have a relaxed attitude towards the ubiquitous undecidability phenomenon in set-theory, rather than a worrying one. We argue these are genuine philosophical problems about the practice of set-theory. We propound solutions, which crucially involve a renunciation of Connexion M. This breaks the dialectical situation of stalemate against the Skolemite skeptic. (shrink)

This article articulates and defends F. H. Bradley's regress argument against external relations using contemporary analytic techniques and conceptuality. Bradley's argument is usually quickly dismissed as if it were beneath serious consideration. But I shall maintain that Bradley's argument, suitably reconstructed, is a powerful argument, plausibly premised, and free of such obvious fallacies as petitio principii. Thus it does not rest on the question‐begging assumption that all relations are internal, as Russell, and more recently van Inwagen, maintain. Bradley (...) does not attack external relations in order to affirm a doctrine of internal relations, and his monism is not derived from the internality of all relations, but from the self‐contradictory nature of all relations. For Bradley, it is the “relational situation”as such that is ontologically defective. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of the concept of burden of proof in argument. Relationship of burden of proof to three traditional informal fallacies is considered: (i) argumentum ad hominem, (ii) petitio principii, and (iii) argumentum ad ignorantiam. Other topics discussed include persuasive dialoque, pragmatic reasoning, legal burden of proof, plausible reasoning in regulated disputes, rules of dialogue, and the value of reasoned dialogue.

This study offers a new analysis of the last argument of Plato's Phaedo for the immortality of the soul. Interpretations of this argument and especially of the last section have differed considerably. Judgements on its value have usually been adverse. One scholar speaks of the ‘screen of unreal argument’ which concludes the proof, and writes that ‘from the standpoint of logic the argument has petered out into futility’. Another describes the final stage of the proof as ‘a blatant petitio (...) principii’. A third remarks that the conclusion follows ‘if we do not look too closely’. (shrink)

Deleuze’s philosophy of painting can be seen to pose certain challenges to a phenomenological approach to philosophy. While a phenomenological response to Deleuze’s philosophy is clearly needed, I show in this article how an approach taken in a recent paper by Christian Lotz proves inadequate. Lotz argues that through Deleuze’s refusal to accept the place of representation in art, he is unable to distinguish art from decoration, or to give a coherent account of how the content of art can be (...) represented. I show that this criticism emerges from a misreading of the place of representation in Deleuze’s philosophy. I will argue that by failing to take account of some of the key features of Deleuze’s wider ontology, such as the importance of both the virtual and the actual for his analysis of objects, Lotz’s critique proves unsuccessful. In particular, I want to show that Lotz’s criticisms rest on a failure to attend to the systematic nature of Deleuze’s philosophy, and in particular, the place of Deleuze’s analysis of Bacon within the system as a whole. I will further show that Lotz’s phenomenological defence commits the fallacy of petitio principii, assuming the validity of the phenomenological method in order to justify the phenomenological approach. (shrink)

(1) The aim of the paper is to develop a reduction of fallacy theory, i.e. to 'deduce' fallacy theory from a positive theory of argumentation which provides exact criteria for valid and adequate argumentation. Such reductionism has several advantages compared to an unsystematic action, which is quite usual in current fallacy but which at least in part is due to the poor state of positive argumentation theory itself. (2) After defining 'fallacy' (3) some principle ideas and (4) the exact criteria (...) for (argumentatively) valid and adequate arguments of the 'practical theory of argumentation' of the author are expounded. These criteria will be used as the positive basis for the following reduction. (5) In the main part of the paper a systematization, definition and explanation of the main types and many subforms of fallacies of argumentative validity and (6) adequacy is developed, following the list of positive conditions of validity and adequacy. In addition to many new types of fallacies, this systematization contains the most important of the traditionally known and named fallacies; these are explained and the criteria for some of them are corrected or put more precisely. (shrink)

Eternal recurrence and the principle of economy in Nietzscheʼs thought. This paper explores the place that the principle of parsimony occupies in Nietzscheʼs thought. I argue that the principle of parsimony is one of the criteria that allow Nietzsche to organize the many different interpretations available to us into a hierarchy. The question is whether Nietzsche can justify the use of this principle without making it a petitio principii. Oddly enough, it seems that eternal recurrence has a role (...) to play in this context. The most important problem Nietzsche has to confront is the problem of circularity. Bringing together Nietzsche’s specific conception of truth with the problem of eternal recurrence allows us to recognize that circularity provides for access to a higher density of the real. (shrink)

Marjorie Grene has argued in a number of contexts that any attempt to reduce the explanation of human actions to “mechanistic” explanations is doomed to failure in advance because it is absurd. “This argument examines the status of the reductivist thesis in its own terms and reduces it to absurdity …” ; “the attempt to reduce human purposive, or ‘intentional,‘ action to physiology and ultimately to physics and chemistry is an absurdity rather than simply a confusion”. I wish to show (...) that this argument is fallacious because it involves a petitio principii; and if Plato can be credited with introducing the same argument in the Theaetetus, as she suggests, so much the worse for Plato. (shrink)

In Parts of Classes [Lewis 1991] David Lewis attempts to draw a sharp contrast between mereology and set theory and to assimilate mereology to logic. He argues that, like logic but unlike set theory, mereology is “ontologically innocent”. In mereology, given certain objects, no further ontological commitment is required for the existence of their sum. On the contrary, by accepting set theory, given certain objects, a further commitment is required for the existence of the set of them. The latter – (...) unlike the sum of the given objects – seems to be an abstract entity whose existence is not directly entailed by the existence of the objects themselves. The argument for the innocence of mereology is grounded on the thesis of “Composition as identity”. Lewis analyses two different versions of the thesis: the first is the Strong composition thesis, according to which certain objects are their sum, where the use of “are” would mean that composition is literally identity. The second version is the Weak composition thesis, according to which composition is analogous, under some aspects, to identity. He criticises the first version of the thesis and argues for the second one. In the paper we argue that (T1) arguments for the ontological innocence of mereology are not conclusive. An obvious objection to the Strong composition thesis is that – given certain objects Xs – they cannot be their sum because none of them is the sum. One could reply to this objection by observing that the “are” in the sentence “The Xs are their sum” is to be understood collectively and not distributively. But the crux is that the collective reading fails to generate a new entity, whereas mereology, in particular in Lewis’ use for the reconstruction of set theory as “megethology”, needs to consider sums as real objects. Besides, we contend that Lewis’ argument for the innocence of mereology based on the Weak composition thesis is a petitio principii. The reason is that the aspects of the analogy between composition and identity, which Lewis emphasises, obtain under the presupposition of the existence of sums. But this is just what a denier of innocence would refuse. (T2) Some arguments against the ontological innocence of mereology show a certain ambiguity in the innocence thesis itself. Some defences of the innocence seem to implicitly presuppose that the sum of certain objects Xs is not a genuine entity. Speaking of the sum of the Xs would be just another way of speaking plurally of the Xs. However, the relevant use of sums in mereology treats them as well determined objects. The relevant innocence thesis takes for granted that, though sums are genuine objects, nevertheless their existence does not require any further commitment. (T3) The innocence thesis, apart from Lewis’ defence, seems to depend on a general conception of the nature of objects and on how the notion of ontological commitment is understood. We think that the thesis is the manifesto of a realistic conception of parts and sums. This conception consists of the following clauses: (i) given any object x, it is well determined which parts it possesses; these are in turn objects whose existence is a necessary consequence of the existence of x. (ii) However any objects Xs are given, they automatically constitute a well determined object x which is their sum; (iii) We can refer singularly and plurally to parts and sums of given objects. Obviously, one might wonder if such a conception is really ontologically innocent. One could object that it is not innocent because clauses (i) – (iii) are not. For example, clause (i) could be considered as an ontological commitment to the existence of sums. But the innocence at issue does not concern the above-sketched conception. The innocence is embedded in the conception itself. In other words, someone who argues for clauses (i) – (iii) takes a point of view from which mereology appears to be innocent. For, such a point of view forces us to consider as well determined the parts of any object and does not allow us to separate the existence of certain objects form the existence of their sum. (T4) is the claim that the alleged innocence of mereology is subject to Quine’s notorious criticisms of the set-theoretical interpretation of second order logic. To the purpose, we construct a mereological model of a substantive fragment of set theory, i.e. the one that grounds the principal model semantics of second order logic. First, we construct a mereological model under the assumption of the existence of infinitely many atoms. Then, we replace this assumption with that of the existence of any infinite object (with or without atoms). Finally, let us make a general point about the innocence thesis of mereology. A conclusive argument for that would be a refutation of the thesis that there are only denumerably many entities. For, since the parts of an infinite object constitute a non-denumerable infinity, such an argument would entail that there could be no infinite without a non-denumerable infinity. However, the thesis that any genuine infinity is a denumerable one has had some important advocates. So, a conclusive argument for the innocence of mereology seems to be highly implausible. (shrink)

This thesis is an investigation of the question of the probative force of the syllogism. It examines on what the probative force of propositions constituting an argument depends and some of the cases in which the conclusion of a syllogism is and is not proven by the premises. The investigation begins by looking at certain preliminary notions associated with arguments in general and categorical syllogisms in particular. In each categorical syllogism are found two claims. One is the claim to truth (...) made by each proposition, and another is the claim to validity made by the syllogism. When each of these claims are fulfilled the syllogism is then sound. The question is whether or not every sound syllogism also represents a proof of the conclusion. John Stuart Mill asserted that no deductive argument including the syllogism can be a proof of the truth of the conclusion on the grounds that the premises presuppose the conclusion. In fact each syllogism is an example of the fallacy of petitio principii which it must by its very nature commit. Alexander Pfänder instead claimed that only in certain cases is the conclusion not proven by the premises, while in other cases the truth of the conclusion is actually proven by the truth of the premises. An independent investigation of the question of the probative force of the syllogism is made. Because of a crucial difference between propositions affirming contingent states of fact and essentially necessary propositions affirming necessary states of fact, it is shown that no syllogism containing contingent propositions can be a proof, while a proof is present in the case of a syllogism containing essentially necessary propositions. When the propositions of an argument are contingent their truth follows from the fact each particular existing instance they refer to actually has what is affirmed by the proposition. Therefore, if the syllogism is valid, the conclusion will refer to at least some of the same particular existing instances on which the truth of each of the premises depends. The premises can be true only if the conclusion is true, and any uncertainty about the truth of the conclusion extends also to the premises. The premises cannot prove the truth of the conclusion since their truth presupposes the truth of the conclusion. Propositions which are essentially necessary are true regardless of whether or not any particular instance exists or will ever exist. Because the state of fact is essentially necessary, the predicate is intelligibly grounded necessarily in the subject. If these kinds of propositions are found in a syllogism, their truth will not depend on the truth of a conclusion. Essentially necessary propositions have probative force, and their presence in a valid argument results in an actual proof of the conclusion. (shrink)

Kant’s justification of possession appears to beg the question (petitio principii) by assuming rather than proving the legitimacy of possession. The apparent question-begging in Kant’s argument has been recapitulated or exacerbated but not resolved in the secondary literature. A detailed terminological, textual, and logical analysis of Kant’s argument reveals that he provides a sound justification of limited rights to possess and use things (qualified choses in possession), not of private property rights. Kant’s argument is not purely a priori; (...) it is in Kant’s Critical sense ‘metaphysical’ because it applies the pure a priori ‘Universal Principles of Right’ to the concept of finite rational human agency. The application of this principle implicitly involves a ‘Contradiction in Conception’ test. I explicate this test in detail and show, inter alia, how Kant’s argument relates to the modern natural law tradition. I further argue that Kant’s ‘Universal Principle of Right’ is justified by appeal to a fundamental principle of justification, the Principle of Mutual Acceptability. This justification also suggests that the debate between Kantians and Utilitarians about whether human ‘dignity’ is an incommensurable value is moot because Kant’s test of the Categorical Imperative need not appeal to ‘dignity’. Finally, I show that the limited rights to possession and use justified by Kant’s argument suffice for his social contract argument for the legitimacy of the state. (shrink)

My argument is that Chalmers’ Zombie fiction and his rigid-designator-argument going back on Kripke seems to come down to a petitio principii. Rather, at the core it appears to be more related to the essential ‘privacy’ of the phenomenal internal perspective. In return for Chalmers I argue that the ‘principle of self-preservation’ of living organisms necessarily implies subjectivity and the emergence of meaning. The comparison with a robot proves instructive. The mode of ‘mere physical’ being is transcended if, (...) in the form of phenomenal perception, meaning appears on the stage of higher animals – a transition explained here as an emergence phenomenon based on the systemic co-operation of perception, evaluation and action (‘percept-eval-act-system’). Some fundamental considerations are added: Those consequences implied by the principle of self-preservation reveal the natural-biological origin of the organism – primarily seeming a more insignificant circumstance – as a momentous fundamental difference (end-in-itself-character, subjectivity, constitution of meaning) compared to technical artefacts (robot). And the emergentist approach indicates the – maybe paradoxical – possibility of a dualism of physical and psychical phenomena in an overall physical system, that is not dualistic at the same time. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Seventeenth-Century Catholic Polemic and the Rise of Cultural Rationalism: An Example from the EmpireSusan RosaIn Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems Sagre-do, an intelligent, cultivated, and well-traveled young man who is persuaded of the truth of arguments in favor of the Copernican opinion presented by the philosopher Salviati, dismisses the counter-arguments of the Aristotelian Simplicio with sympathetic condescension: “I pity him,” he proclaims,no less than I should (...) some fine gentleman who, having built a magnificent palace at great trouble and expense, employing hundreds and hundreds of artisans, and then beholding it threatened with ruin because of poor foundations, should attempt, in order to avoid the grief of seeing the walls destroyed, adorned as they are with so many lovely murals; or the columns fall, which sustain the superb galleries, or the gilded beams, or the doors spoiled, or the pediments and the marble cornices, brought in at so much cost—should attempt, I say, to prevent the collapse with chains, props, iron buttresses, and shores. 1 [End Page 87]This elegant simile, which suggests that the fine gentleman can only preserve his palace by destroying its beauty, is meant to evoke the dilemma of the scholastic philosopher who is confronted by the evident disintegration of his intellectual home. Like the desperate owner who seeks to shore up his real palace, he must rebuild a philosophical edifice whose apparent beauty and coherence have been achieved at the expense of substance and can only be preserved by recourse to means so ugly and inadequate that they destroy even the illusion of credibility.Such a dilemma, I would argue, was the legacy bequeathed to many defenders of traditional religion in the seventeenth century by more than one hundred years of confessional rivalry. To simplify a complex process, this lengthy period of controversy and apologetic, to say nothing of warfare and mutual persecution, had generated a discourse which objectified and prob-lematized religion, making it something to think about rather than to think with. 2 In other words, the formal statements of conviction issued in the wake of the Reformation by competing denominations within Christendom, like the Catechism of the Council of Trent, the Augsburg Confession, the Genevan Confession, or the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England had encouraged the development of the notion of religion as adherence to a set of propositions. As Peter Harrison has explained, this creation of a propositional religion in turnenabled discussion of the merits of other “religions” conceived to exist similarly as sets of beliefs. The truth or falsity of a religion had become a function of the truth or falsity of the propositions which constituted it. True religion... [had become]... a body of certain knowledge. 3Harrison’s remarks are significant because they suggest that the origins of rationalized discourse about religion and its consequent transformation from a way of thinking to an object of thought are to be found squarely within orthodoxy itself. 4To be specific, the competing content of official doctrinal pronouncements led not only to the comparison of the religions but implicitly to their emergence as subjects of a discourse which proposed reason as the norm, a [End Page 88] development clearly reflected in the wave of pamphlets, broadsides, printed disputations, and formal polemical treatises written in both Latin and the vernacular languages which poured from the presses of Catholic and mainstream Protestant denominations in England and on the continent throughout the seventeenth century. In this literature, Protestants accused Catholics of “superstition” and “idolatry,” while Catholics urged potential converts to compare the religions with a view to discovering their “marks of truth,” argued for the compatibility of Catholic faith and “natural light,” and identified heresy, on the contrary, with unreason, passion, lust, and self-contradiction. On both sides of the confessional fence, polemicists frequently insisted that religious discussion conform to the rules of logic, accusing one another of failing to argue from incontrovertible first principles, and of succumbing to the fatal dangers of petitio principii and circular reasoning. In other words, they claimed that in religious matters poor argumentation is a sure sign of error, and it would not be... (shrink)

Desarrollo varias hipótesis sobre los propósitos de la argumentación racional, parcialmente inspiradas en el análisis de Jackson sobre el concepto de petitio principii. Destaco como especialmente relevante entre tales propósitos la referencia a los potenciales destinatarios de una argumentación. Ilustro la discusión con un caso concreto: el argumento elaborado por Putnam para demostrar que no somos cerebros en una cubeta. Presento una versión de ese argumento y lo defiendo frente a una posible crítica que lo acusa de prejuzgar (...) la cuestión.I work out some hypothesis on the purposes of rational arguing, partly inspired by Jackson’s analysis of the concept of petitio principii. It is especially relevant among such purposes the reference to the potential intended addressee of an argument. The discussion is illustrated with a concrete example: Putnam’s proofthat we are not brains in a vat. I present a version of Putnam’s proof and defend it from a possible criticism which accuses it of begging the question. (shrink)

In this article I subject to criticism Field's argument, according to which field theory takes space-time to be substance since it ascribes field properties to space-time points. There is petitio principii error made in this reasoning because Field does not give any justification for his controversial assumption that fields are properties of space-time points. What is more, I suggest, Field's interpretation of field theory is incompatible with the way this theory is understood and utilized by its users, namely (...) scientists. My criticism is based on the assumption that one cannot propose an ontology of a given scientific theory, at the same time imposing on it an interpretation which clashes with the interpretation current among its users. I also suggest that in order to establish the ontology of a scientific theory one should also take into account the way it has been constructed. According to this criterion, field theory does indeed take space-time to be a substance. (shrink)

We argue that thinking of the man-machine comparison in terms of a contest involves, in a reasonable scenario, a criterion of success that is neutral. This is because we want to avoid a petitio principii. We submit, however, that, by looking at things this way, one makes the most essential human things invisible. Thus, in a sense, the contest approach is self-defeating.

The proof of God’s existence, known as Ratio Anselmi, is being analyzed. Four first-order theories are constructed to mirror versions of Anselm’s reasoning. God’s existence is shown to be provable in all of them. A traditional objection to the employment of a concept of God is overruled. And yet, Anselm’s proof is eventually found to be incorrect. The error attributed to Anselm consists in an illegitimate use of the words “greater‘ and “conceivable‘, and is identified as quaternio terminorum or (...) class='Hi'>petitio principii, depending on circumstances. It is claimed that there is no direct way to improve the argument. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz sollen einmal mehr zentrale Begründungsschritte im Ausweis der menschlichen Willensfreiheit in den Sektionen 2 und 3 von GMSIII untersucht werden, mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des in Sektion 3 formulierten Zirkels von Freiheit und Sittlichkeit. Das zentrale Ergebnis zur zweiten Sektion besagt, dass Kant dort keinen Beweis der menschlichen Willensfreiheit leistet, er vielmehr den eigentlichen Beweis, der in der dritten Sektion geleistet wird, bloß skizzierend vorwegnimmt. In der dritten Sektion liefert Kant eine geschlossene Argumentation von der notwendig anzunehmenden Vernünftigkeit (...) vernünftiger Wesen zur notwendigen Annahme transzendentaler Freiheit bis zur notwendigen Zuschreibung von Sittlichkeit, wobei der Schluss von der Freiheit der epistemischen Vernunft auf die praktischtranszendentale Freiheit geschieht. Dieser Befund ergibt sich zumindestdann, wenn man den Zirkel als eine eindeutige petitio principii liest, wofür auch sehr viel spricht. Allerdings ergeben sich in dieser Lesart Schwierigkeiten, Kants selbst formulierten Ausweg aus dem Zirkel zu interpretieren, wie er ihn am Ende der dritten Sektion formuliert. (shrink)

Acquaintance with the name of argument against the vacuum, the present syllogism in René Descartes’ The Principles of Philosophy of 1644 must be extended to any form of continuum space. This article studies it from the point of view of Logic, with the purpose of revealing its petitio principii in relation with the analytical judgments. Hereby, as a result of review the foremost historic sources from where Kant obtains his famous division of the judgments in analytical and synthetic, (...) we will be able to understand the best method to discern about them and to demonstrate the subdivision that we need to establish inside the analytical judgments. (shrink)