Yes, in Mike's case it appeared that his emphasis on language and symbolic
representation and presumption of genetic dissimilarity presumed the point he
was making about the disparity between animal and human studies. The level of
analysis reflected in his quote also seemed at first blush to me not at the
level of analysis for those research studies he was citing. Gary
Gerald L. (Gary) Peterson, Ph.D.
Professor, Psychology
Saginaw Valley State University
University Center, MI 48710
989-964-4491
peter...@svsu.edu
>>> "Christopher D. Green" <chri...@yorku.ca> 4/6/2009 2:39 PM >>>
Mike Palij wrote:
On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 07:16:19 -0700, Gerald Peterson writes:
But this:
Mike Palij opined:
How does the human use of language and symbolic representations
affect the conclusions about learning and memory observed in animals,
especially species that are not "close" to us genetically?
Seems to beg the question.
Depends upon what you mean by this.
See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question
Ah, one of my pet peeves. There is only one proper use for "begs the question."
When one begs the question, one assumes the conclusion in the premises of one's
argument. Somewhere along the line (in the early 1990s, I think), journalists
got hold of the idea that "begging the question" is a kind of intensification
of "raising the question" -- as in, "His recent conduct raises the question of
whether he is sane." Replacing the phrase with "begs the question...." This is
a plain misuse (born of poor education in basic informal logic/argument theory,
adopted presumably for its heightened dramatic effect -- "begging" connotes
more devotion to the topic on the part of the journalist than mere "raising")
but it has become so popular in the mass media, that it has begun to overtake
the correct use. An easy way to tell whether the phrase is being misused is
whether it is immediately followed by a prepositional phrase (e.g., "begs the
question THAT....", "begs the question OF..."). This does not occur in the
correct usage. It simply refers to a fallacious form of argument.
Chris
--
Christopher D. Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada
416-736-2100 ex. 66164
chri...@yorku.ca
http://www.yorku.ca/christo/
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