| Something declared or stated positively, often with no support or attempt at proof. |  |
Saracens - the best team in England? This week’s WotW is for my year 10 students - however might as easily apply for many of my year 11 “All Stars” as well! They recently made their first attempts at IGSCE exam questions – the “describe” questions went well enough, but the “explain” and “evaluate” still have some way to go! It’s not that they did not know their evidence, bible quotes, Christian teachings, logical objections etc. it was just that they failed to deploy them! In short, there were too many assertions!
An assertion is a positive statement that lacks support or reasons. We make them all the time in everyday life and most of the time they cause no problem; “The Earth is round”; “Light travels faster than sound”; “Saracens are the best Rugby team in England”. These statements are widely accepted (especially the last one in my household!) and so don’t require us to offer any evidence to support them. Indeed, life would be rather tedious if we had to justify such statements every time we made them.
An assertion is a positive statement that lacks support or reasons. We make them all the time in everyday life and most of the time they cause no problem; “The Earth is round”; “Light travels faster than sound”; “Saracens are the best Rugby team in England”. These statements are widely accepted (especially the last one in my household!) and so don’t require us to offer any evidence to support them. Indeed, life would be rather tedious if we had to justify such statements every time we made them.
However in Philosophy and Ethics we have to be very wary of assertions; they have the potential to make arguments seem better than they really are and should be avoided if we want to be sure of persuading someone of our case. In equal measure it is the job of a critical thinker to spot when someone has made an assertion and challenge them for their reasoning and evidence. Many students forget this fact, especially when the subject of the debate is something which is well established such as a societal taboo or religious tradition (see the previous word of the week; Irrelevant Appeals).
In the last 100 years many philosophers have developed ideas around where the “burden of proof” lies and have generally concluded that it always lies with the person making the claim. One famous example of such a philosopher is Bertrand Russell and his celestial teapot. This is an analogy which tries to demonstrate why the philosophic burden of proof is always with those making the claim, rather than shifting it onto those who would dispute the claim.
Russell claims that this is what religious people have a tendency to do; to say that the sceptic has a duty to prove the theist wrong. To show the absurdity of this Russell said that if he claimed that there was a teapot orbiting the Sun, somewhere between the Earth and Mars, it is nonsensical to expect others to believe him on the grounds that they cannot prove him wrong.
In the last 100 years many philosophers have developed ideas around where the “burden of proof” lies and have generally concluded that it always lies with the person making the claim. One famous example of such a philosopher is Bertrand Russell and his celestial teapot. This is an analogy which tries to demonstrate why the philosophic burden of proof is always with those making the claim, rather than shifting it onto those who would dispute the claim.
Russell claims that this is what religious people have a tendency to do; to say that the sceptic has a duty to prove the theist wrong. To show the absurdity of this Russell said that if he claimed that there was a teapot orbiting the Sun, somewhere between the Earth and Mars, it is nonsensical to expect others to believe him on the grounds that they cannot prove him wrong.
In an article titled "Is There a God?" commissioned, but never published, by Illustrated magazine in 1952, Russell wrote:
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. (Russell, 1952) |
So this week when you are making an argument or writing an essay have a think about where the burden of proof really lies and if it is up to you to prove the point you are making. Thinking about assertions will not only get you more marks in an exam but much more importantly will make you into a better thinker.
Have I made any assertions in this post?
References:
Russell, Bertrand. "Is There a God? [1952]" (PDF). The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 11: Last Philosophical Testament, 1943–68. Routledge. pp. 547–548. Retrieved 28 September 2014.
Have I made any assertions in this post?
References:
Russell, Bertrand. "Is There a God? [1952]" (PDF). The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 11: Last Philosophical Testament, 1943–68. Routledge. pp. 547–548. Retrieved 28 September 2014.
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