Argument from silence
To make an argument from silence (
Thus in
An argument from silence may apply to a document only if the author was expected to have the information, was intending to give a complete account of the situation, and the item was important enough and interesting enough to deserve to be mentioned at the time.[6][7]
Arguments from silence, based on a writer's failure to mention an event, are distinct from
Historical analysis
Structure of the argument
John Lange provided the basic structure for the analysis of arguments from silence based on three components:[3][9]
- An extant document D in which no reference to an event E appears.
- It is known that the intention of the author of document D was to provide an exhaustive list of all the events in the class of events to which E belongs
- Event E is assumed to be a type of event which the author of D would not have overlooked, had the event taken place.
The applicability of these three conditions is decided on a case-by-case basis, and there are no general dialectical rules for them, except the historian's expertise in evaluating the situation.[3][9] In Lange's analysis, an argument from silence is only suggestive and never logically conclusive.[3][9]
Professors of history
Professor of English Michael Duncan states that there are very few scholarly analyses of arguments from silence; but these typically view it as fallacious.[8] Duncan adds that arguments from silence are not mentioned in Aristotle's Sophistical Refutations or Hamblin's book Fallacies, but both of these texts discuss the somewhat similar case of argument from ignorance.[8] Errietta Bissa, professor of Classics at University of Wales, flatly states that arguments from silence are not valid.[11] David Henige states that, although risky, such arguments can at times shed light on historical events.[5]
Author's interest
The importance of an event to contemporary author plays a role in the decision to mention it, and historian Krishnaji Chitnis states that for an argument from silence to apply, it must be of interest and significance to the person expected to be recording it, else it may be ignored; e.g. while later historians have lauded the Magna Carta as a great national document, contemporary authors did not even record a word about its greatness; to them it was a feudal document of low significance, among several other seemingly similar items.[7]
Classicist Timothy Barnes notes that the low level of interest in and awareness of Christians within the Roman Empire at the turn of the first century resulted in the lack of any discernible mention of them by Roman authors such as Martial and Juvenal, although Christians had been present in Rome since the reign of Claudius (41 to 54 AD) and both authors referred to Judaism.[12][13] Theologian Peter Lampe states that during the first two centuries, the silence of Roman sources on Christians in Rome may be partly due to the fact that Christians often kept to themselves and did not reveal their identities.[14]
Examples
Convincing applications
An example of a convincing application is that while the editors of the
Sometimes the silence of multiple sources may have a probative value that sheds light on the historical circumstance, for instance Jacob Neusner states that an argument from silence regarding the absence of an Exilarch sheds light on the relationship between Jews and the Parthian administration in Babylonia.[16]
An example of a convincing application is the silence of Cicero on works of oratory by Cato; the argument gaining its strength from the fact that Cato was such an important figure in Cicero's Brutus and he would have likely been cited if possible.[17] Although Cicero's silence on Cato is a convincing argument from silence, the same strength does not apply to Cicero's silence on the questorship of Caelius, Michael Alexander stating that a number of factors may have precluded Cicero from mentioning it.[18]
Failed applications
Historian
Professors of philosophy Sven Bernecker and Duncan Pritchard state that arguments from silence are generally weak and can go astray in many cases, and point to examples such as Marco Polo's neglect of the Wall of China, and
Use with caution
Some historians note the general dangers of arguing from silence, but use them in specific cases as indications of levels of professional activity within
Barrie J. Cook, the British Museum European coin curator, notes the risks of arguing from silence, yet states that they may shed light on the medieval propensity of the usage of the French denier from Le Mans versus the Angevine.[25]
Greg Walker, professor of rhetoric and English, states that during the reign of Henry VIII, the lack of references to named plays by Nicholas Udall (e.g. the Respublica) do not necessarily support their not having been performed at court; given other evidence such as payment warrants issued to Udall for performance masks.[26]
Legal aspects
In the context of Morocco's Truth Commission of 1999 regarding torture and secret detentions, Wu and Livescu state that the fact that someone remained silent is no proof of their ignorance about a specific piece of information. They point out that the absence of records about the torture of prisoners under the secret detention program is no proof that such detentions did not involve torture, or that some detentions did not take place.[28]
See also
- Argument from ignorance
- Evidence of absence
- Philosophic burden of proof
- Philosophic burden of proof § Proving a negative
- Right to silence in England and Wales § Adverse inferences from silence
References
- ^ ISBN 0-415-96219-6 Routledgepp. 64–65 "arguments from silence are, as a rule, quite weak; there are many examples where reasoning from silence would lead us astray."
- ^ "argumentum e silentio noun phrase" The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English. Ed. Jennifer Speake. Berkley Books, 1999.
- ^ a b c d e John Lange, The Argument from Silence, History and Theory, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1966), pp. 288–301 [1]
- ^ ISBN 0-86554-369-0pp. 55–56.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-299-21410-4p. 176.
- ^ ISBN 0-8014-8560-6Cornell University Press pp. 73–74 "Another difficulty with argument from silence is that historians cannot assume that an observer of a particular fact would have automatically recorded that fact. Authors observe all kinds of events but only record those that seem important to them."
- ^ ISBN 81-7156-121-7p. 56
- ^ a b c M. G. Duncan "The Curious Silence of the Dog and Paul of Tarsus; Revisiting The Argument from Silence" Informal Logic, Vol 32, No 1 (2012) pages 83–84 "Scholarly examinations of the Arguments From Silence (AFS) are extremely rare; when existent it is typically treated as a fallacy."
- ^ a b c M. G. Duncan "The Curious Silence of the Dog and Paul of Tarsus; Revisiting The Argument from Silence" Informal Logic, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2012) p. 85
- ISBN 0-8014-8560-6Cornell University Press p. 74
- ISBN 90-04-17504-0p. 21: "This is a fundamental methodological issue on the validity of arguments from silence, where I wish to make my position clear: arguments from silence are not valid."
- ISBN 0-687-11444-6 p. 232: "Most inhabitants of the Roman Empire in A.D. 100 were either unaware of or uninterested in the Christians in their midst. Even in Rome, where there had certainly been Christians since the reign of Claudius, the varied epigrams of Martial and the satires of Juvenalmake no identifiable allusion to the new religion, though both authors deride Jews and Judaism."
- ISBN 0-415-49694-2p. 79
- ISBN 0-8264-8102-7pp. 141–42: "It was not desirable, at least for the first two centuries, for the average Christian to advertise his or her Christianity openly ... Seen in this manner, the silence of the evidence attests not only to the "plerique paupers." It also indicates how Christians wisely did not reveal their identity to every potential denunciator."
- ^ "Talmud". A Concise Companion to the Jewish Religion. Louis Jacobs. Oxford University Press, (1999) p. 261
- ISBN 0-89130-738-9pp. 53–54 "It is admittedly an argument from silence, but in this case the silence is practically probative, because we have a story which gives a vivid picture of Jewish relations with the Parthian administration in Babylonia."
- ISBN 0-520-25576-3p. 153
- ISBN 0-472-11261-9University of Michigan Press p. 323 "The argument from silence is, as usual, treacherous. Cicero's failure to mention Caelius' questorship could have various explanations."
- ^ ISBN 0-8248-2494-6p. 32.
- Xerxesreminds us of the dangers of any argument from silence." See p. 385 regarding the customs document.
- ISBN 0-521-84292-1Cambridge University Press p. 110: (letter 6.16 narrates the eruption of the volcano and letter 6.20 the sequence of events) "By the standards of Pliny's letters, the two accounts are remarkably precise in terms of facts and figures."
- ISBN 90-04-16447-2p. 95 "it unlikely that military service was a major source of local employment, even if arguing from silence is always dangerous"
- ISBN 90-04-10394-5p. 91: "It must be concluded, therefore, that, even taking into account the dangers of arguing from silence, early medieval southern Italy probably did not have very many female medical practitioners"
- ISBN 0-8047-3340-6Stanford University Press p. 119 "Arguing from silence has its hazards. Historians run the risk of anachronism by investing significance in the absence in past documents of what is constantly talked about in the present."
- ISBN 90-04-14777-2pp. 653–54: "While arguing from silence is always risky, it does seem curious that the coinage was completely absent from both the 1140s Massay hoard (found near Bourges) and the 1150s Nogentle-Rotrou hoard"
- ISBN 0-521-56331-3Cambridge University Press p. 171 "Arguing from silence is always a hazardous undertaking, and in this case seems to fly in the face of the other known facts ... What, then, seems likely is that the Respublica was performed at court over Christmas in 1553."
- ^ Jed Rubenfeld Rights of Passage: Majority Rule in Congress Duke Law Journal, (1996) Section B: Arguments from silence, "From this silence one can draw clear plausible inferences about the Framers' intent. The only difficulty is that one can draw two different inferences ... The truth is that the argument from silence is not dispositive".
- ISBN 0-7391-6741-3pp. 86–90.