About 6.5 years ago, during my master thesis defence I remember the chair of the defence raising an issue with some language in my thesis.
The problem was the use of “this begs the question”. I had used it as most people use it, to say that ‘this suggests, raises, or leads to the question’. Turns out this completely wrong, and someone felt strongly enough about it to create a whole website about it.
The correct usage of ‘begging the question’ is to describe circular logic, or asking the question again in the answer. For instance:
“The web server performs so well because it is able to carry out tasks so efficiently.”
If you are begging the question, you’re backing up a previous claim by with nothing other than the assuming the previous claim is true.
