Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

The phrase "begs the question" has suffered of late from a great amount of abuse. In response, I'm going to be, as this photo suggests, a little gnomic. I could go work on my garden. Someone observing me, could blog: "This begs the question, does he know which is  weed and which is a flower?" This would disclose not only that I have querulous neighbors, but that at least one of them is ignorant of the vocabulary of logical fallacies, the domain whence comes the abused expression. Proper use:  "It is obvious that I know which one is a weed, because I tug certain plants right out of the ground with gusto!" "That begs the question." My hypothetical riposte is an effort to prove something by presuming what was to be proved. If someone suspected that I was tugging the wrong plants out of the ground, he wouldn't be persuaded otherwise by my reflection on my own gusto when I do so. But let's get back to the misuse. I suggest that...

I remember when I was in high school I became interested in Dante's DIVINE COMEDY. (For those of you who may be curious, I was reading the Sayers/Reynolds translation, which preserves the terza rima scheme of the original verse.) This was a matter of some consternation to various kin and neighbors, who thought I could not possibly understand such a book and it could only hurt my lil' teenage mind to try. One neighbor lady (whom I will shroud in anonymity hereafter -- the initials NL shall be enough) somberly sought to discuss the book with me. The conversation went something like this: NL: What do you think the book is about? CF: (staggered a bit at the vastness of the ground a proper answer would cover): Well, Dante was writing at a time when the Papacy and the Holy Roman Emperor were engaged in a struggle for power. He used the three afterlife destinations to suggest his own take.... NL:   No no, you're missing the point. His point was the kind of l...