Comment on Peter of Spain, Jim Mackenzie and begging the question
This paper claims to detect a failure in the reviewer's ``Confirmation of a conjecture of Peter of Spain concerning question-begging arguments'' [J. Philos. Logic 13, 35-45 (1984; Zbl 0538.03002)], namely that it does not classify the argument \(\underline x/\therefore\underline y\) as question-begging where \(\underline x=\underline z\& \underline y\), where \(\underline x\) is a universalisation of which \(\underline y\) is an instance, or where \(\underline x\) presupposes \(\underline y\). Indeed it doesn't. They only beg the question if \(\underline x\) is not defended in turn without appealing to \(\underline y\). An example of the conjunctive case in which this is plausible is defending ``April has only thirty days'' by replying ``Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November'', which is in turn defended by appeal to the authority of one's Third-Year teacher [the reviewer, ``Why do we number theorems?'', Austral. J. Philos. 58, 135-149 (1980), p. 140; cf. \textit{R. Sorensen}, `` ``\(\underline P\), therefore \(\underline P\)'' without circularity'', J. Philos. 88, 245-266 (1991), pp. 250 n.]. It is pleasing that the pace of this debate has picked up from 7 centuries to 9 years between moves.
scientific article; zbMATH DE number 203334