Shaddai

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Hebrew for Christians
BS''D
Circular Definition

Explanation: The definition includes the term being defined as a part of the definition. (A circular definition is a special case of a Failure to Elucidate.)


Examples:

  1. An animal is human if and only if it has human parents.

    (The term being defined is "human". But in order to find a human, we would need to find human parents. To find human parents we would already need to know what a human is.)
     
  2. A book is pornographic if and only if it contains pornography.

    (We would need to know what pornography is in order to tell whether a book is pornographic.)
     

Proof: Identify the term being defined. Identify the conditions in the definition. Show that at least one term used in the conditions is the same as the term being defined.



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