Difference between revisions of "Burden Of Proof"
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Revision as of 07:24, 9 January 2024
The Burden of Proof is a convention of discourse that ranges from making discussion easier to making discussion possible at all. "Shifting the Burden of Proof" is often considered an informal fallacy -- where the person who should have the burden of proof according to convention instead demands it of the other -- although accusations of shifting such burdens appear just as likely to be incorrect in practice.
When it is said that somebody has the "Burden of Proof" in an argument, that means as a convention of discourse that person is the one who should provide a logical argument and/or evidence for the claims he or she is making.
What causes one to have the burden of proof?
Making a Claim
The burden of proof is typically said to fall on the person "making a claim". While this is on its face pragmatic in some discourse, it's not necessarily helpful in others. If we can presume the person making the claim is endeavoring to convince the other, and the other is open to the argument but otherwise ambivalent to discussion and does not seek to convince anybody of anything, then in practice the burden of proof MUST fall on the claimant in order for discourse to occur at all. A claimant of a null hypothesis does not necessarily need to prove that null hypothesis if he or she can argue for why rejecting the null hypothesis is absurd, though this just moves that burden over to the argument from absurdity from the original claim.
If party A wants to convince party B of something, and party B doesn't care to convince party A of anything, then party A carries the burden of proof for some kind of argument to gain a foothold with party B.
