Circular reasoning
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Circular reasoning (
Circular reasoning is often of the form: "A is true because B is true; B is true because A is true." Circularity can be difficult to detect if it involves a longer chain of propositions.
An example of circular reasoning is: "
History
The problem of circular reasoning has been noted in Western philosophy at least as far back as the Pyrrhonist philosopher Agrippa who includes the problem of circular reasoning among his Five Tropes of Agrippa. The Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus described the problem of circular reasoning as "the reciprocal trope":
The reciprocal trope occurs when what ought to be confirmatory of the object under investigation needs to be made convincing by the object under investigation; then, being unable to take either in order to establish the other, we
suspend judgement about both.[5]
The problem of induction
Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau note that "using the scientific method to judge the scientific method is circular reasoning". Scientists attempt to discover the laws of nature and to predict what will happen in the future, based on those laws. The laws of nature are arrived at through inductive reasoning. David Hume's problem of induction demonstrates that one must appeal to the principle of the uniformity of nature if they seek to justify their implicit assumption that laws which held true in the past will also hold true in the future. Since the principle of the uniformity of nature is itself an inductive principle, any justification for induction must be circular. But as Bertrand Russell observed, "The method of 'postulating' what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil".[6]
See also
- Affirming the consequent
- Argument from authority
- Catch-22 (logic)
- Circular definition
- Circular reference
- Circular reporting
- Coherentism
- Formal fallacy
- I'm entitled to my opinion
- Ipse dixit, a fallacy that can be translated as "because I said so"
- List of cognitive biases
- Paradox
- Polysyllogism
- Problems with economic models
- Self-reference
- Tautology (logic)
References
- ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 389.
- ^ Dowden, Bradley (27 March 2003). "Fallacies". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Archived from the original on 9 October 2014. Retrieved April 5, 2012.
- ISBN 9780070466494.
- ISBN 9780521886178.
- ^ Sextus Empiricus, Pyrrhōneioi hypotypōseis i., from Annas, J., Outlines of Scepticism Cambridge University Press. (2000).
- ISBN 9780495094920.