You can undermine any belief just by demanding proof. Then, when proof is provided, demand proof for the proof. And then proof for the proof for the proof. And then proof for the proof for the proof for the proof. And then proof for the proof for the proof for the proof for the proof. And so on ad infinitum.
3 comments:
Or my favorite, when something is denied to exist and you provide an example of that thing, they digitally roll their eyes and declare that one example means nothing.
Good one, Legion. Chalmers' universal refutation is also quite good: you ask someone to explain themselves, and then say "that's what you think." (Incidentally, I seem to recall that the prove it game derives from an idea by Lewis Carroll in a 1895 paper in Mind, and is called the Carrollian regress.)
Well, if proof means an argument, said argument will need true premises. Said premises will need proof themselves, and so on, until we reach premises that are acceptable to both parties without proof. That's how logic goes unfortunately. And a determined holdout can no doubt keep quibbling for ever. At each iteration he gets a whole new bunch of premises to pick at!
Lewis Carroll's What the Tortoise Said to Achilles shows what happens if you treat rules of inference as premises.
Post a Comment