a mere housewife
Not your cup of tea
I don't know how to phrase this in proper logical terms so will probably make a complete hash of it -- but I realized (at least if my reasoning is correct) thinking about the problem Brian posted that if a particular card didn't potentially disprove the rule, it couldn't go to proving the rule either. Of course it takes only a single card to disprove the rule and more than one of the potentially disproving cards to establish it in the limited set: so - I'm not trying to ask if a thing is proved if it isn't disproved, but only if a rule can possibly be potentially proved (in conjunction with other evidences) by any given piece of evidence that could not potentially disprove it entirely?
In other words -- to give a more obvious example -- an atheist says to me that he rejects God because he's never had any experience of Him. This cannot potentially disprove the existence of God, since the natural man is spiritually blind: therefore it cannot go towards potentially proving His non-existence. It's simply irrelevant.
The problem I'm having with this is that I don't know how I can claim that this holds universally true, because I could never prove that it does. If the only way to arrive at that is by induction -- taking a set of data and demonstrating that it holds true for that data, then by applying that outside the set of data am I not doing somewhat the same thing as the atheist? That is, I have no experience of the rule being disproved, therefore it's proved (though in this case my experience could potentially disprove the rule if I had found it not to hold true, but cannot alone establish proof of it: even if my experience extends to the testimony of the experience of all others)?
Is this an a priori rule of logic? Is it a fallacy? Can I use it in a discussion with an atheist? Am I simply entirely confused?
(Also, I was wondering if some of what happens in theological controversy is that we attempt to prove something about an opposing point of view, with a piece of evidence that could never have disproved the same -- and so we merely talk past each other?)
In other words -- to give a more obvious example -- an atheist says to me that he rejects God because he's never had any experience of Him. This cannot potentially disprove the existence of God, since the natural man is spiritually blind: therefore it cannot go towards potentially proving His non-existence. It's simply irrelevant.
The problem I'm having with this is that I don't know how I can claim that this holds universally true, because I could never prove that it does. If the only way to arrive at that is by induction -- taking a set of data and demonstrating that it holds true for that data, then by applying that outside the set of data am I not doing somewhat the same thing as the atheist? That is, I have no experience of the rule being disproved, therefore it's proved (though in this case my experience could potentially disprove the rule if I had found it not to hold true, but cannot alone establish proof of it: even if my experience extends to the testimony of the experience of all others)?
Is this an a priori rule of logic? Is it a fallacy? Can I use it in a discussion with an atheist? Am I simply entirely confused?
(Also, I was wondering if some of what happens in theological controversy is that we attempt to prove something about an opposing point of view, with a piece of evidence that could never have disproved the same -- and so we merely talk past each other?)
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