What is the 'true' meaning of the expression 'to beg the question?' Well, it depends on what you mean by true. Today, 'to beg the question' is often used as a synonym for 'to raise the question,' but historically, 'to beg the question' had a very different meaning. It involved neither 'begging' nor a 'question,' but rather, a philosophical fallacy of circular reasoning that traces back to Aristotle. Over the course of about two thousand years, a series of mistranslations and semantic corruptions have resulted in the phrase's modern 'misusage.'