It seems to me that people sometimes misunderstand what makes a claim commit the fallacy of circular reasoning. I remain unsurprised about the paucity of grasping logic that exists in my culture, and that paucity sometimes manifests itself in this way. I have recently thought about a very particular example of this: how I have heard people say that we can't use memory to verify memory. What is problematic about this?
Using memory to verify memory is not necessarily circular reasoning in the sense of saying that the government is telling the truth about something because the government says it is telling the truth; it is to demonstrate by use of a tool that the tool itself succeeds. Allow me to use a specific example to illustrate this. For instance, if someone wanted to know if he or she had memorized a Bible verse correctly, the only possibly way for someone else who has not memorized the verse to verify or falsify the results would be to simultaneously check a Bible and have the other person recite the verse. It would not be circular reasoning for the memorizer to say that he or she will prove that perfect memorization of the verse has occurred by reciting the verse, as that is the only way to verify to the other person that the verse was properly memorized.
Not every instance of allowing something to verify itself indulges in the fallacy of circular reasoning! In fact, sometimes the exercise of a faculty is the exclusive way to verify the reliability of that faculty. Only an unreasonable person would not understand how some aspects of memory memory certainly fall into this category. Someone commits circular reasoning when he or she assumes a conclusion to be true as part of an argument for the very conclusion in question, not by allowing select things like specific forms of memory to prove themselves valid. Clarity in the proper identification of circular reasoning will prevent misclassifying certain arguments as fallacious when they do not contain erroneous logic at all.
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