hatsoff

A great many liberal arguments are made from silence. Recently, I read a spin on 1 Clement which proposed the Bishop did not know of Peter and Paul's martyrdom. And this sort of thing happens all the time in various other disciplines.

If a fact is common knowledge among ancient contemporaries, where does that leave an argument from silence?

Roger Pearse

All arguments from silence seem (to me anyway) to presuppose that we have lots of information around the subject in general, and this makes the absence of information suggestive.

This works well in contemporary life -- I recently saw a bunch of media reports about a possible terror plot, not one of which mentioned who was responsible, for almost 24 hours. Knowing the political correctness of our media as I do, I inferred immediately from that silence that Moslems were responsible, since in any other case we'd have been told -- and so it proved.

But for antiquity, we are never very well informed. Pietro Bembo estimated that 99% of all literature is lost (a statistic related and endorsed by N.G.Wilson). Archaeologists tell us that "absence of evidence is never evidence of absence" in their digs -- where there is perhaps more reason to find absence suggestive.

An example that comes to mind is the early printed editions of the works of Tertullian. None of these contain the Ad Nationes, which was published a century later from a single manuscript, the 9th century Codex Agobardinus. One might infer from this silence that none of these editors used this manuscript; except that this manuscript is extant, and we can see in the margins of it evidence that the editor of the 1545 edition used it. So the silence is in fact evidence of nothing, and we have to guess why he ignored a text that would have added commercial value to his book. Life is like that.

Now about common knowledge -- what does this mean, for ancient texts? Surely it means that it is recorded in a number of witnesses. I would suggest that it is not a useful phrase, since we cannot in fact access "common knowledge" in antiquity -- only specific witnesses to information. Unless perhaps I misunderstand the question...?

All in my humble opinion, of course.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Doug Shaver

That depends on how the particular argument from silence is framed. What might be relevant to a discussion of how Peter and Paul died might have no bearing at all on whether, just for instance, James the Just was a sibling of Jesus of Nazareth.

If a response to an argument from silence alleges that a writer failed to mention a fact because it was common knowledge and therefore needed no mention, that looks to me like a circular argument. If the point at issue is whether the alleged fact was indeed a fact, then you cannot assume its factuality in order to explain someone's failure to mention it.

wiccan windwalker

a two-edged sword dihedral: the argument from silence.....for example the lack of contrarian accounts of the gospel writers, one would think that the orthodox jewish leaders and the Roman leaders, being highly literate, would have written detailed refutations to the early Christian letters being widely circulated throughout palestine and first century Roman towns.

post tenebras lux

Do you have any evidence that there actually were early christian letters in the first century, wiccan windwalker? And - if you do - what evidence do you have that these 'early christian letters' were being widely circulated throughout palestine and roman towns, wiccan windwalker?

I think 'openly' should be explicitly added to 'widely': do you have any evidence that 'early christian letters' were being widely and openly circulated throughout palestine and roman towns?

wiccan windwalker

sheesh post tenebras...kindly read the thread again..we (the rest of us that is) were talking about the argument from SILENCE,and certain inferences drawn therefrom, with the operative point being made that one must be careful in so doing...... and fwiw(the circumstantial inference supports my proposition, but with several caveats)

post tenebras lux

Well it is a short thread, and I had read it.

I don't know if you'd noticed but your post reads as a standard 'proof that the NT is true' (because, otherwise said literate jews and romans would have debunked these widely circulating letters).

If you were in fact arguing that the alternative - that these letters are later creations - is more probable, given the silence of contemporary literate jews and romans, then I agree with you.

[sidenote]What do you mean by a dihedral two edged sword? :huh: [/sidenote]

wiccan windwalker

dihedral in game theory is a type of loop, for example the arguments from silence tend to loop, they (circle around and bite you in the arse!)

post tenebras lux

OK, I thought you were comparing a two-edged sword with upwardly angled plane wings. I couldn't see how such a sword would work/what the analogy was.

gstafleu

An argument from silence (AFS) first and foremost says that certain evidence is lacking. To take a locally popular example, Paul is silent (let's assume that for the sake of discussion) about historical details of Jesus as presented in the gospels. Hence we lack evidence in Paul that he knew about these details. Hence we cannot assume that he knew them (note to finickers: arguments about how we could deduce Paul's knowledge from other elements within Paul would count as him not being silent). We cannot assume that he did not know them either, you might say. Well maybe, except for Occam's razor. It is more parsimonious to assume that he is silent because he didn't know than it is to suppose that he is silent for some reason: it is the need for that reason that reduces parsimony vv the didn't know assumption.

An AFS is never strong proof, but it helps. And in the absence of other evidence, whatever it points to should be accepted (until, obviously, more and better evidence comes along). It helps to accompany your AFS with something else, e.g. a better explanation of whatever you are discussing, one that better fits the observed facts and lack thereof. Doherty e.g. does not just say Paul is silent, he then comes with an argument for a better explanation. In that case the AFS helps, because it is part of a whole structure that doesn't only contain an AFS.

Gerard