Burden of Proof

The burden of proof is the idea that a person who is making a claim is responsible for finding sufficient evidence to warrant their position on the issue. In the case regarding our class, the person who says "I believe such and such about the unconscious mind" has the responsibility of providing sufficient evidence. The individual cannot place the burden of proof on the opposition as in "you cannot prove that such and such is not the case," this would be committing the logical fallacy called Appeal to Ignorance. Even if you know for certain that no evidence can be found contrary to your position, it is a bad philosophy to imply that lack of contrary evidence equates to a reason for believing something , because evidence could always surface later and the person whom you are pressing for opposition is not likely an expert in that field.

This situation does not apply only to affirmative assertions. If, for instance, I said that there is not a perfectly visible pink unicorn in the bowman, it would be up to me to prove that there is not a pink unicorn there. Though you could prove me wrong by surveying the entirety of Bowman and finding a pink unicorn, you don't have to so long as you do not assert that there are pink unicorns. Not believing A does not automatically equate to believing not A, you can simply refuse to believe of disbelieve a claim until proven If, for whatever reason, you were unable to prove that there is a unicorn, that doesn't meant that my assertion is right. What this is neither evidence of presence or evidence of absence, you can take a stance on either side so long as it doesn't harm others and so long as you recognize that the other side has an equally valid view.