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Preface
This article was originally published 2017/04/18. Revised with additions on 2024/02/10 for an entry on academia.edu.
This article was originally published 2017/04/18. Revised with additions on 2024/02/10 for an entry on academia.edu.
Pirie
Bruce Thompson's Fallacy Page
Cited
PIRIE, MADSEN (2006)(2015) How To Win Every Argument, Bloomsbury, London.
The argumentation ad ignorantiam is committed when the lack of knowledge is presented to infer that the opposite is true. (126).
Paraphrased, Pirie examples of this fallacy:
Ghosts exist! Millions of dollars have been spent by researchers to disprove the existence of ghosts, and yet ghosts have never been disproven. (126).
The author explains that the positive version of this fallacy states that what has not been disproven, will eventfully be proven. (126). Whether the fallacy is used positively or negatively, both appeal to ignorance. (127).
Pirie reasons that via ignorance both existence and especially non-existence are very difficult to prove. (127).
Reasonable views with theology, philosophy, science and academia, etcetera, should not be presented with a formula of premise (s) (ignorance), therefore conclusion (contrary). Premise (s) and propositions should be made with the use of reason and evidence, leading to conclusion (s).
Premise (s) and propositions should be established with knowledge, leading to reasonable conclusions.
This fallacy:
Negative
Asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false.
Atheism is true, because God has not been demonstrated to exist empirically.
(This depends on empiricism proving the non-physical).
Asserts that a proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true.
Christianity is false, because no one has empirically spoken with God.
(This dismisses Biblical history and Biblical revelation).
Positive
Christianity has not been disproven, but eventually science will prove all religion as mythology.
(This assumes that naturalism will eventually prove the supernatural is false).
The argumentation ad ignorantiam is committed when the lack of knowledge is presented to infer that the opposite is true. (126).
Paraphrased, Pirie examples of this fallacy:
Ghosts exist! Millions of dollars have been spent by researchers to disprove the existence of ghosts, and yet ghosts have never been disproven. (126).
The author explains that the positive version of this fallacy states that what has not been disproven, will eventfully be proven. (126). Whether the fallacy is used positively or negatively, both appeal to ignorance. (127).
Pirie reasons that via ignorance both existence and especially non-existence are very difficult to prove. (127).
Reasonable views with theology, philosophy, science and academia, etcetera, should not be presented with a formula of premise (s) (ignorance), therefore conclusion (contrary). Premise (s) and propositions should be made with the use of reason and evidence, leading to conclusion (s).
Premise (s) and propositions should be established with knowledge, leading to reasonable conclusions.
This fallacy:
Negative
Asserts that a proposition is true because it has not yet been proven false.
Atheism is true, because God has not been demonstrated to exist empirically.
(This depends on empiricism proving the non-physical).
Asserts that a proposition is false because it has not yet been proven true.
Christianity is false, because no one has empirically spoken with God.
(This dismisses Biblical history and Biblical revelation).
Positive
Christianity has not been disproven, but eventually science will prove all religion as mythology.
(This assumes that naturalism will eventually prove the supernatural is false).
2024/10/02 Additions
Cited
'Source: John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690. Locke takes credit for naming this fallacy.'
Cited
'Description:
The argument offers lack of evidence as if it were evidence to the contrary. The argument says, "No one knows it is true; therefore it is false," or "No one knows it is false, therefore it is true."'
'Comments:
The phrase "ad ignorantiam" is a Latin phrase that means (just as one would expect), "(appeal) to ignorance." Sometimes, in order to make the claim that "no one knows," the argument insists upon an inappropriately strong standard of proof. I have found the fallacy particularly difficult to classify. I currently classify it with the Errors of Observation. It is like Inductive Hyperbole in that both fallacies draw an inappropriately strong conclusion from relatively weak and indecisive observations.'
Cited
'Argumentum ad Ignorantiam: The Argumentfrom Ignorance
Abstract: The argumentum ad ignorantiam (the argument from ignorance or the appeal to ignorance) is characterized with examples and shown to be sometimes persuasive but normally fallacious.'
Cited
'The Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam (Argument from Ignorance of Appeal to Ignorance) Defined.
The Ad ignorantiam fallacy is the logical error which occurs when a proposition is unjustifiably claimed to be true simply on the basis that it has not been proved false
or
the logical error occurring when a proposition is unjustifiably claimed to be false simply because it has not been proved true.'
Cited
'Statement p is unproved.
∴ Not-p is true.'
(My translation. Statement p is unproved, therefore p is false)
Cited
'or
Statement not-p is unproved.
∴ p is true.'
(My translation. Statement not-p is unproven, therefore p is true)
Lander University References
John Weston Walch, Complete Handbook on Government Ownership or Railroads (Platform News, 1939), 138.↩
William Harvey, “On Conception,” The Works of William Harvey, M.D. trans. Robert Willis (London: Sydenham Society, 1847), 575.↩
Sarah Annie Guénette, Marie-Chantal Giroux, and Pascal Vachon, “Pain Perception and Anaesthesia in Research Frogs, Experimental Animals 62 no. 2 (2013), 87-92. doi: 10.1538/expanim.62.87 ↩
David Schramm, “The Age of the Elements,” Scientific American 230 no. 1 (January, 1974), 70.↩
Robert Brandenberger and Ziwei Wang, “Nonsingular Ekpyrotic Cosmology with a Nearly Scale-Invariant Spectrum of Cosmological Perturbations and Gravitational Waves,” Physical Review D 101 no. 9 (March 20, 2020), 063522-1 – 0563522-9.doi: 10.1103/PhysRevD.101.063522↩
“Abominable Snowman Doesn't Exist,” Greenville News 110 no. 99 (April 8, 1984), 11.↩
Andrew Holtz, The Medical Science of House, M.D. (New York: Berkeley Publishing, 2006), 27.↩
David Schramm, “The Age of the Elements,” 67.↩
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding in Four Books 3rd ed. (1689 London: Awnsham, John Churchil, and Samuel Manship 1695), 306.↩
10. Dionysius Lardner, Lectures Upon Locke's Essay (Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1831), 160.↩
Cited
'Typical types of ad ignorantiam in the popular media often include examples such as these:
If one argues that God or telepathy, ghosts, or UFO's do not exist because their existence has not been proved, then this fallacy occurs.
On the other hand, if one argues that God, telepathy, and so on do exist because their non-existence has not been proved, then one argues fallaciously as well.'
LANGER, SUSANNE K (1953)(1967) An Introduction to Symbolic Logic, Dover Publications, New York. (Philosophy).
PIRIE, MADSEN (2006)(2015) How To Win Every Argument, Bloomsbury, London.
