3 2 8C H A P T E R 1 6 ■ F a l l a c i e s o f V a c u i t y- Explanations are often presented in the form of arguments that sometimes
seem circular. Are the following arguments circular? Do they beg the ques-
tion? Are they defective in some other way? Why or why not? More gener-
ally, when, if ever, can circular arguments provide good explanations?
A. Tom: Why are so many people moving out of Claremont this year?
sue: Because its economy is going down so fast.
Tom: But why is its economy going down so fast?
sue: Because so many people are moving out of town.
B. Amy: Why is Jarred going down on the seesaw right now?
John: Because Jeremiah is going up on the other side of the seesaw.
Amy: But why is Jeremiah going up right now?
John: Because Jarred is going down. - Explain John Stuart Mill’s argument in the following passage (from A Sys-
tem of Logic [London, 1843], book 2, chapter 3, section 2). Do you agree?
Why or why not?
It must be granted that in every syllogism, considered as an argument to prove the
conclusion, there is a petitio principii [a begging of the question]. When we say,
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
∴ Socrates is mortal;
it is unanswerably urged by the adversaries of the syllogistic theory that the
proposition, “Socrates is mortal,” is presupposed in the more general assumption,
“All men are mortal”; that we cannot be assured of the mortality of all men unless
we are already certain of the mortality of every individual man.... That, in short,
no reasoning from generals to particulars can, as such, prove anything, since from a
general principle we cannot infer any particulars but those which the principle itself
assumes as known.^1
Discussion QuestionsSelf-Sealers
It is characteristic of certain positions that no evidence can possibly refute
them. This may seem to be a wonderful feature for a position to have. In
fact, however, it usually makes the position useless. We can start with a silly
example. A Perfect Sage claims to be able to predict the future in detail. The
Perfect Sage’s predictions take the following form:
Two weeks from today at 4:37 you are going to be doing exactly what you will
be doing.
Of course, whatever you are doing at that time will be exactly what you are
doing, so this prediction cannot possibly be wrong. But this is only because
it does not tell us anything in particular about the future. Whatever happens,97364_ch16_ptg01_323-332.indd 328 15/11/13 11:07 AM
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