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An argument from silence (also called argumentum a silentio in Latin) is generally a conclusion drawn based on the absence of statements in historical documents. In the field of classical studies, it often refers to the deduction from the lack of references to a subject in the available writings of an author to the conclusion that he was ignorant of it.

Thus in historical analysis with an argument from silence, the absence of a reference to an event or a document is used to cast doubt on the event not mentioned. While most historical approaches rely on what an author's works contain, an argument from silence relies on what the book or document does not contain. This approach thus uses what an author "should have said" rather than what is available in the author's extant writings.

Arguments from silence, based on a writer's failure to mention an event, are distinct from arguments from ignorance which rely on a total "absence of evidence" and are widely considered unreliable; however arguments from silence themselves are also generally viewed as rather weak in many cases; or considered as falacies.

Historical analysis

Structure of the argument

John Lange provided the basic structure for the analysis of arguments from silence based on three components:

• An extant document D in which no reference to an event E appears.

• It is known that the intention of the author of document D was to provide an exhaustive list of all the events in the class of events to which E belongs

• Event E is assumed to be a type of event which the author of Doc would not have overlooked, had the event taken place.

The applicability of these three conditions is decided on a case by case basis, and there are no general dialectical rules for them, except the historian's expertise in evaluating the situation. In Lange's analysis, an argument from silence is only suggestive and never logically conclusive.

Professors of history Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier thus state that an argument from silence can act as presumptive evidence only if the person failing to mention the information was in a position to have the information, and was purporting to be giving a complete account of the story in question. Howell and Prevenier state that arguments from silence face the difficulty that a historian can not just assume that an author would have recorded the fact in question; for if the fact did not seem important enough to an author it would have been excluded.

Professor of English Michael Duncan states that there are very few scholarly analyses of arguments from silence; but these typically view it as fallacious. Errietta Bissa, professor of Classics at University of Wales flatly state that arguments from silence are not valid. David Henige states that, although risky, such arguments can at times shed light on historical events.

Examples

An example of a convincing application is that while the editors of Yerushalmi and Bavli mention the other community, most scholars believe these documents were written independently; and Louis Jacobs writes, "If the editors of either had had access to an actual text of the other, it is inconceivable that they would not have mentioned this. Here the argument from silence is very convincing."

Another example of a convincing application is the silence of Cicero on works of oratory by Cato; the argument gaining its strength from the fact that Cato was such an important figure in Cicero's Brutus and he would have likely been cited if possible.

Yifa has pointed out the perils of arguments from silence, in that the lack of references to a compilation of a set of monastic codes by contemporaries or even by disciples does not mean that it never existed. This is well as illustrated by the case of Changlu Zongze's "Rules of purity" which he wrote for the Chan monastery in 1103. One of his contemporaries wrote a preface to a collection of his writings neglected to mention his code. And none of his biographies nor the documents of the Transmission of the Lamp, nor the Pure Land documents (which exalt him) refer to Zongze's collection of a monastic code. However a copy of the code in which the author identifies himself exists.

Frances Wood based her controversial book Did Marco Polo go to China? on arguments from silence. Woods argued that Marco Polo never went to China and fabricated his accounts because he failed to mention elements from the visual landscape such as tea, did not record the Great Wall and neglected to record practices such as foot-binding. She argued that no outsider could spend 15 years in China and not observe and record these elements. Most historians disagree with Wood's reasoning.

Professors of philosophy Sven Bernecker and Duncan Pritchard state that arguments from silence are generally weak and can go astray in many cases, and point to examples such as Marco Polo's neglect of the Wall of China, and Pliny the Younger's silence on the destruction of Pompei and Herculaneum when he discusses the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius in detail in his letters.

Classicist Timothy Barnes notes that the low level of interest in and awareness of Christians within the Roman Empire at the turn of the first century resulted in the lack of any discernible mention of them by Roman authors such as Martial and Juvenal, although Christians had been present in Rome since the reign of Claudius (41 to 54 AD) and both authors referred to Judaism.

Legal aspects

Jed Rubenfeld, professor of Law at Yale Law School, has shown an example of the difficulty in applying arguments from silence in constitutional law, stating that although arguments from silence can be used to draw conclusions about the intent of the Framers of the US Constitution, their application can lead to two different conclusions and hence they can not be used to settle the issues.

In the context of Morocco's Truth Commission of 1999 regarding torture and secret detentions, Wu and Livescu state that the fact that someone remained silent is no proof of their ignorance about a specific piece of information. They point out that the absence of records about the torture of prisoners under the secret detention program is no proof that such detentions did not involve torture, or that some detentions did not take place.

See also

• Evidence of absence
• Negative proof
• Philosophic burden of proof

References

1. ^ The origins of Buddhist monastic codes in China by Yifa, Zongze 2002 ISBN 0-8248-2494-6 page 32.
2. "argumentum e silentio noun phrase" The Oxford Essential Dictionary of Foreign Terms in English. Ed. Jennifer Speake. Berkley Books, 1999.
3. ^ John Lange, The Argument from Silence, History and Theory, Vol. 5, No. 3 (1966), pp. 288-301
4. "silence, the argument from". The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. Ed. E. A. Livingstone. Oxford University Press, 2006.
5. ^ Seven Pillories of Wisdom by David R. Hall 1991 ISBN 0-86554-369-0 pages 55-56.
6. ^ Historical evidence and argument by David P. Henige 2005 ISBN 978-0-299-21410-4 page 176.
7. ^ The Routledge Companion to Epistemology by Sven Bernecker and Duncan Pritchard (Dec 2, 2010) ISBN 0415962196 Routledge pages 64-65 "arguments from silence are, as a rule, quiet weak; there are many examples where reasoning from silence would lead us astray."
8. ^ M. G. Duncan "The Curious Silence of the Dog and Paul of Tarsus; Revisiting The Argument from Silence" Informal Logic, Vol 32, No 1 (2012) page 83 "Scholarly examinations of the Arguments From Silence (AFS) are extremely rare; when existent it is typically treated as a fallacy."
9. ^ M. G. Duncan "The Curious Silence of the Dog and Paul of Tarsus; Revisiting The Argument from Silence" Informal Logic, Vol 32, No 1 (2012) page 85
10. From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods by Martha C. Howell and Walter Prevenier (Apr 26, 2001) ISBN 0801485606 Cornell University Press page 74
11. From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods by Martha C. Howell and Walter Prevenier (Apr 26, 2001) ISBN 0801485606 Cornell University Press page 73-74 "Another difficulty with argument from silence is that historians cannot assume that an observer of a particular fact would have automatically recorded that fact. Authors observe all kinds of events but only record those that seem important to them."
12. Governmental intervention in foreign trade in archaïc and classical Greece by Errietta M. A. Bissa ISBN 90-04-17504-0 page 21: "This is a fundamental methodological issue on the validity of arguments from silence, where I wish to make my position clear: arguments from silence are not valid."
13. "Talmud". A Concise Companion to the Jewish Religion. Louis Jacobs. Oxford University Press, 1999 page 261
14. The School of Rome: Latin Studies and the Origins of Liberal Education by W. Martin Bloomer (Apr 27, 2011) ISBN 0520255763 page 153
15. For Pliny's letters see Reading the Letters of Pliny the Younger by Roy K. Gibson and Ruth Morello (Apr 23, 2012) ISBN 0521842921 Cambridge Univ Press page 110: (letter 6.16 narrates the eruption of the volcano and letter 6.20 the sequence of events) "By the standards of Pliny's letters, the two accounts are remarkably precise in terms of facts and figures."
16. Timothy Barnes "Pagan Perceptions of Christianity" in Early Christianity: Origins and Evolution to Ad 600 edited by Ian Hazlett et al (May 1991) ISBN 0687114446 page 232: "Most inhabitants of the Roman Empire in A.D. 100 were either unaware of or uninterested in the Christians in their midst. Even in Rome, where there had certainly been Christians since the reign of Claudius, the varied epigrams of Martial and the satires of Juvenal make no identifiable allusion to the new religion, though both authors deride Jews and Judaism."
17. For the reign of Clausius see Aspects of Roman History by Mark Everson Davies 2010 ISBN 0415496942 page 79
18. Jed Rubenfeld Rights of Passage: Majority Rule in Congress Duke Law Journal, 1996 Section B: Arguments from silence, "From this silence one can draw clear plausible inferences about the Framers' intent. The only difficulty is that one can draw two different inferences.... The truth is that the argument from silence is not dispositive".
19. Human Rights, Suffering, and Aesthetics in Political Prison Literature by Yenna Wu, Simona Livescu 2011 ISBN 0-7391-6741-3 pages 86-90.

• Relevance fallacies
• Silence