Talk:Circular reasoning

	This Logic related article has not received a brainstar for quality. Please consider expanding the article appropriately. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.

Archives for this talk page:

<1>

, (new)

Should I add this as a link or an embed?

Interactive example of circular reasoning.

ClickerClock (talk) 05:40, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Fun site, thanks for the link! Though, while the argument presented certainly is fallacious — it doesn't actually look circular to me?

• All cats have four legs (All X have P).
• Dogs do not exist (There are no Y).
• This dog is a cat (This Y is an X).

The above seems to me more like a non-sequitur. I imagine that the intended circularity was supposed to stem from both cats and dogs being four-legged animals? Reverend Black Percy (talk) 16:00, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Circles

Is 'learning about the geometry of circles' circular reasoning? 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:37, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

No. Reasoning about circles is not the same as circular reasoning. You make a good pun, however. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 15:45, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

I like it too - but would reasoning about squares be "square reasoning"? Unfortunately, probably not.--Bob^{"Life is short and (insert adjective)"} 16:11, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

I have a taste for harmless puns (see the one on the 'Being of light talk page) which makes up for the absence of snark. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 16:47, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

And is 'reasons for crop circles' another appropriate non sequitur? 127.0.0.1 (talk) 16:21, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

What do you mean? Reverend Black Percy (talk) 16:59, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Crop circles, reasons for their existence - same relationship to circular reasoning as 'mathematical reasoning to understand circles.' 127.0.0.1 (talk) 17:36, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

These are two different fallacies.

They are. They need to be split up into separate articles. For example:

(i) if Gettier-type counterexamples are avoidable, at least in principle, then the tripartite account can become adequate, at least in principle; (ii) Gettier-type counterexamples are avoidable, at least in principle; therefore (iii) the tripartite account can become adequate, at least in principle.

That's an example of begging the question. "If one could prove (ii) that the counter examples are indeed avoidable, one would have proved that the tripartite account can become adequate, thanks to (i), but (i) is acceptable only if one already assumes (iii), that is, only if one already believes that the tripartite approach is a step in the right direction, but this is precisely the point in question." (see here for my source, pp. 61-62). Circular reasoning is the fallacy that's addressed well in this article. Begging the question is not addressed. L'homme Idéal (je rigole). 14:14, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

I always felt like "begging the question" was merely the logical fallacy that is represented in formalization of circular reasoning. That they're not "different" in any absolute sense, just usage. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 15:51, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Circular reasoning is like "A is true because B is true; B is true because A is true". As I understand it, begging the question is closely related but not the same thing. Begging the question assumes the truth of the conclusion and then constructs an argument that proves the conclusion. In my example above, (iii) is already accepted as true, so (i) and (ii) are created in order to prove that (iii). However, this isn't a persuasive argument because there isn't any real evidence for the truth of (iii), we've just constructed something that makes it true. Koifishdevelopment (swim) 16:47, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

Bible is the word of God

I've seen this so many times. It's infuriating. ^{— Unsigned, by: Doublethink / talk / contribs}

On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you. 141.134.75.236 (talk) 19:52, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, now that I've been here for a while I know that. Doublethink (talk) 18:03, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

Ah yes

The fallacy I named my account after. In some other universe, SoundReasoning is a Conservapedian who became a fundie after getting radicalized by the anti-abortion crusade and has since loudly disowned his moderate Christian parents for not being religious enough (whereas they gradually came to accept my deconversion to atheism and quickly ditched homophobia as American society grew more accepting of gays in the mid '10s), and is closeted and self-hating enough to eagerly help Ken in writing his guide to self-hatred- even doubling down as his idol sank further and further into his bigotry spiral and “own the atheists” mentality in the early 2020s. --Goatspeed. _{Watch me}🎄CircularRasoning🎄^{See my experiments} 06:15, 23 January 2024 (UTC)