vicious circle

plural vicious circles

1. A situation in which the response to one problem creates a chain of problems, each making it more difficult to solve the original one.

   Meanwhile street congestion grows worse and the vicious circle tightens of private motor-cars which impede L.T.E. buses in Central London and of exasperated bus travellers who therefore take to using their own cars.

   1961 November, “Talking of Trains: London Transport in 1960”, in Trains Illustrated, page 656

   Synonyms: vicious cycle

2. human sciencesA fallacy in which the premise is used to prove a conclusion which is then used to prove the premise.

   But historical materialism cannot tell us why one is important and not the other, except on the ground that it is able to account for the latter-and this is clearly a vicious circle.

   1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume I: The Founders, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: powstanie (in Polish), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 365

   Synonyms: begging the question, circular argument, petitio principii