Now that we've introduced the topic of fallacies of acuity, today we're going to talk about circularity and begging the question. So what are these things? What is circularity and what is begging the question? Circularity is a fallacy that results when an argument's premises contain its conclusion, when the conclusion is right there among the premises. Now, this is a really egregious fallacy, not one that people are likely to make very often, because it's so easy to notice. But let me give you an example, just so you can see what I'm talking about. So consider this simple example of circularity. Premise one, this argument, this very argument, has a premise. Premise two, this very argument has a conclusion. Therefore, conclusion, this argument has a conclusion. Now notice, the conclusion of that argument is the same proposition as premise two of that argument. In other words, the conclusion is right in the premises. That's a circular argument. That's an example of a fallacy of circularity. That's pretty hard to miss, and that's not the kind of fallacy that most people often make. But circularity is one very egregious example of a more general kind of fallacy that lots of people make, and that's called begging the question. So what's begging the question? Well, begging the question is a kind of fallacy that results when you can't have any reason for accepting the premises of the argument unless you already have some independent reason for believing the conclusion. Right, so in a certain sense the argument assumes what it sets out to prove, because unless you already have a good reason for believing the conclusion to be true, you can't have a good reason for believing the premises to be true. And without having a good reason for believing the premises to be true, the argument can't give you any insight. It can't teach you anything. No argument can teach you something unless you have a good reason for believing the premises of that argument to be true. So that's the fallacy of begging the question. Now, what's an example of that? These examples can be a little more subtle. Right, because not all forms of begging the question are circularity. Let me give an example of begging the question that doesn't involve circularity. So consider this argument. Again, it's a simple argument. The Pope says that he is infallible. Premise two, whatever the Pope says is always right. Therefore, conclusion, the Pope is infallible. Now notice that argument is obviously valid, right. If the Pope says that he's infallible and whatever he says is right, then he must be right to say that he's infallible. In fact, that's how the doctrine of papal infallibility was first established was by papal decree. I'll let you look that up. Anyhow, if the premises of the argument are true, the conclusion has to be true. So the argument is valid, but even though the argument is valid, in fact, even if the argument is sound, the argument is still a fallacy. And the reason it's a fallacy is that we can't have any good reason for believing premise two of the argument, unless we already have some reason, independently of the argument, for believing the conclusion. Right, unless we already know that the pope is infallible, why should we believe that whatever the pope says is always right? Well, maybe there is some other reason, but unless that additional reason is supplied In the argument, this argument begs the question. It begs the question, because it relies on premises that we have no reason to believe unless we already have a good reason to believe the conclusion independently of the argument itself. So this argument is an example of begging the question, but notice it's not an example of circularity. The conclusion of the argument that the Pope is infallible, that conclusion is not in the premises. It's not one of the premises. Right, there are two premises in the argument, and neither of those premises says precisely that the Pope is infallible. So this argument is an example of begging the question, but it's an example of begging the question that doesn't involve circularity. And that sort of fallacy is much harder to notice, much easier to make, and much more common in everyday life. You can see some examples right now.