What's that word? Does it mean “circular reasoning”?

Question

This is really a two part question. How do you find a word that you forget, but you remember its definition? I have this problem routinely. I usually try googling "word that means fill-in-words-from-the-definition-here. But that doesn't always work.

For example, there is a word which means circular reasoning. What is it? I tried googling (that is, searching) word meaning circular reasoning, with no luck (on the first page of results). Same results at Bing. I also looked up "circular reasoning" on dictionary.com. That site had a definition, but no synonyms.

I know for a fact the word I'm looking for exists (I've seen it). You'd think Google could find it. I thought the word was tautology, but it seems to have a slightly different definition.

P.S. Example: So-and-so, on Fox News is a right-wing partisan (am I displaying my bias here?).

How do you know?

Because they're on Fox News.

Answer 1

As to the first part of your question about finding a word you've forgotten, you could try a reverse dictionary.

I also love, love, love my dog-eared copy of Roget's Thesaurus. (I should probably have looked up some synonyms for "love.") There is something to be said for thumbing through it and finding a category of words to ponder. Serendipity at its best, I tell you. There's an online version of Roget's too, but it's just not the same.

Answer 2

What about tautological ?

This may convey what you require.

Answer 3

A fallacy is incorrect reasoning, of which circular logic is one kind. Wikipedia also has a List of Fallacies which may help you.

Answer 4

Circular argument and petitio principii are other terms I've seen for this. Wikipedia says it's also called begging the question:

Begging the question (Latin petitio principii, "assuming the initial point") is a type of logical fallacy in which a proposition is made that that uses its own premise as proof of the proposition. In other words, it is a statement that refers to its own assertion to prove the assertion.

Answer 5

I believe the term you are looking for is petitio principii

Petitio Principii: (circular reasoning, circular argument, begging the question) in general, the fallacy of assuming as a premiss a statement which has the same meaning as the conclusion.

As you can see, this is also sometimes called "question-begging" or "begging the question."