Circular arguments, begging the question and the formalization of argument strength
Ulrike K. Hahn, Mike Oaksford, N. Corner · BIROn (Birkbeck, University of London) · 2005
Recently Oaksford and Hahn (2004) proposed a Bayesian reconstruction of a classic argumentation fallacy- Locke’s ‘argument from ignorance. ’ Here this account is extended to what is probably the most well-known of all argumentation fallacies: circular reasoning or ‘begging the question’. A Bayesian analysis is shown to clarify when and where circular reasoning is good or bad, and how seeming paradoxes about circular reasoning from the informal reasoning literature can be resolved with a more precise notion of argumentation and argument strength. 1.