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Circular Reasoning

"This is true because the source is trustworthy. The source is trustworthy because they only say true things." If that sounds like it goes nowhere — it doesn't. That's the point.

Circular reasoning uses the conclusion as its own premise. The argument appears to move forward, but it's just looping back on itself. "The book is divinely inspired because it says so, and what it says must be true because it's divinely inspired." Nothing new enters the chain. The claim supports itself with itself, dressed up in enough words to hide the circle.

Institutions love this structure. "Trust us because we're the official source. We're the official source because people trust us." Regulatory bodies, media organisations, scientific journals — any authority that points to its own authority as evidence of its reliability is running the same loop. This doesn't mean they're wrong. It means their argument, on its own, gives you zero reason to believe them. Credibility has to come from outside the circle — from evidence, track record, or independent verification. Not from the authority restating its own authority.

Circular reasoning often hides behind layers of complexity. Add enough steps between the premise and the conclusion, and the circle becomes hard to spot. "A says B, B confirms C, C validates A" feels like a chain of evidence. But if A, B, and C all depend on each other, you've got a closed loop, not a foundation.

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