Is petitio principii a petitio principii?

J Martín Castro-Manzano

doi:10.18012/arf.2016.40801

Abstract

In this contribution we focus on the petitio principii fallacy and we review it under the tenets of different typical treatments. Then we submit the claim that petitio principii is indeed fallacious, not because of circularity—as the typical treatments suggest—, but because it fails to follow an order relation in Searle and Vanderveken's illocutionary logic. In other words, we claim that, although petitio principii arguments appear to be circular with respect to their propositional content, they are not circular with respect to their illocutionary acts. And hence, even when petitio principii arguments look like propositional loops and instances of reflexivity, they actually constitute a failure in an order relation, a non sequitur as it were.

Highlights

Fallacies have been traditionally defined as patterns of poor reasoning that appear to be good; this traditional approach has proved to be quite problematic and unsatisfactory, and several projects have emerged in order to overcome its issues._J_
In this contribution we focus on the petitio principii fallacy and we review it under the tenets of different typical treatments
We submit the claim that petitio principii is fallacious, not because of circularity —as the typical treatments suggest, but because it fails to follow an order relation in Searle and Vanderveken's illocutionary logic

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Fallacies have been traditionally defined as patterns of poor (i.e. invalid) reasoning that appear to be good (i.e. valid); this traditional approach has proved to be quite problematic and unsatisfactory (cf. Hansen, 2000; Hamblin, 1970, p.12), and several projects have emerged in order to overcome its issues. To show how this is so, we focus on petitio principii—a fallacy known as question begging—and we review it under the tenets of different treatments. We submit the claim that petitio principii is fallacious, but not because of circularity—as the typical treatments suggest—, but because it does not verify an order relation (using Searle and Vanderveken's illocutionary logic), which turns out to be a rather traditional solution

A BRIEF SURVEY ON PETITIO PRINCIPII

CONCLUSIONS

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