Begging the Question
So the other day, someone asked me, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
Nevermind the circumstances. Wasn’t that interesting, really.
But I was just reflecting on the question, and it strikes me that it’s one of those questions that can only be purely rhetorical. If you ask somone if they are out of their mind, you’ve probably already satisfied yourself that they are. And when you ask someone a question you are asking them to activate their rational thought processes.
Someone who answers “Yes” to that question is obviously still lucid enough to reflect on their own mental state, and so they can’t really be considered to be out of their minds. But someone who answers “No” might be exercising perfectly normal introspection, or they might be so far gone that they’re no longer capable of meaningful self-evaluation.
So it’s one of those questions that’s really more about making a statement than an interrogative. Kind of like “Have you ever seen a more beautiful sunset?” or “Don’t you miss disco?”