premjan

In the case of existence of a historical person (not associated with supernatural acts), it is hard to prove that they did not exist, but possible to provide support for the assertion that they did exist. Such support could be - various things that are attributed to the person. It would be logical to assume that a person who appears to exist due to having many attributions, actually existed. On the other hand, if this person is supposed to have done some supernatural things, then we would be less certain about those aspects of his existence, at least. One would of course desire evidence from various different types of sources to be fairly certain of the person's existence.

In the case of whether the Synoptics provided some reference for the Gospel of John, there would be some lines of evidence indicating that there was some use of the Synoptics made to write the Gospel of John (e.g. similarities, and proof that one is earlier chronologically than the other). But if these similarities are adequately or more convincingly explained through borrowing from other sources, then we would have to retract those evidences.

I.e. evidence of a relation or an existent are easier to provide than evidence of nonexistence or nonrelation.

Now if the statement was: King Arthur did not exist - then a reasonable disproof would be historical documents or artifacts showing his existence. If the statement was: there is no relation between the Synoptics and the Gospel of John, then we could disprove or at least weaken that statement by showing some strong resemblance between the two documents that is not otherwise accountable.

The desire of a person to prove certainly tends to place the burden of proof upon them, as a person who is not interested in the proof will be unlikely to undertake it.

spin

Here I can hear Confusious jumping up and down shouting, "nein, nein, nein, Scheisse, nein, nein, nein." I could just make him out saying, "Not 'logical', Heini, 'convenient'!... We can't go running round questioning everything all the time. Nobody finish story that way.... Just because some pigdog talk about some person, not mean person real... It easy for us to let it pass for sake of story he tell... If you wanna say something through the existence of this person in story, then you gotta get past convenience."


-- a acolyte

Peter Kirby

/me wishes he could have Confusious's commentary on all the dull books he reads.

kind regards,
Peter Kirby

spin

Confusious say, "not read dull book. Similar read American porn: too much climax, too little satisfaction. Give me Garfield. Real meaning of life."


-- a acolyte

premjan

Well, OK Confucius, I guess one can also talk about the quality of proof.

spin

Sorry, my master in need of speech therapy is "Confusious" not that hep Chinese fellow. I think the name derives from "one who has the tendency to confuse".

Confusious ask, "exist burden of proof without need quality of proof?"


-- a acolyte

premjan

Let's just call it quality of evidence, because I sort of doubt that the word 'proof' is appropriate. There can never be too much evidence, unless people capitulate and accept the hypothesis.

The Evil One

With a claim like the Gospel of John example, the BOP rests with anyone making a positive assertion one way or the other. If they don't demonstrate their case, we can default to the undecided position, which does not require a burden of proof, i.e. that maybe GOJ makes use of a Synoptic and maybe it doesn't, we don't know.

With King Arthur, the default is the same: maybe he was based partly on a real person and maybe not, we just can't know. The burden of proof then rests on anyone who would argue that the early sources are reasonably supportive of a historical core, or conversely argue that the nature of the story-cycle suggests a mythical development from old Celtic religion. The problem is that the "don't know" position for existence claims - which does not have a burden of proof - is for many practical purposes equivalent to the "denial of existence", e.g. for discussing the deeds of Arthur, let's say someone says "Arthur drove back the Saxons", then the not-knower would respond, "It's not been adequately proven that Arthur is historical", and the Celtic-god theorist would reply, "Rubbish, the Saxons are clearly stand-ins for Celtic demon forces [or whatever- I'm not an Arthurian scholar]". For practical purposes these repsonses are very similar, though conceptualy distinct, as they are denying the notion that we can rely on the historicity of the event in question.

diudiu

How about thinking it this way:

There is an existing world view or knowledge base (whatever you call it). Now someone makes claim X. ~X is consistent with the existing knowledge base while X is not.

Person who made claim X has burden of proof.

The tricky part is that the existing knowledge base must be reliable. If it says ~X then there must be evidence for ~X. Otherwise ~X should not be in the knowledge base.

Peter Kirby

Isn't it the case that in no field except mathematics is the knowledge base "reliable" in this sense?

kind regards,
Peter Kirby