RE: WLC: "You can't prove the negative"
February 16, 2022 at 9:54 pm
(This post was last modified: February 16, 2022 at 9:57 pm by Belacqua.)
(February 16, 2022 at 9:48 pm)Foxaire Wrote: The issue seems to be that philosophers erroneously believe mathematical proof statements are knowledge statements.
No, it was philosophers who worked out what constitutes proof in the first place. And what is the difference between mathematical statements and other types. It's true that some philosophers are fuzzy on this, because some of them are not very good philosophers.
The error here was made by Fake Messiah. I'm not sure he would be happy to be called a philosopher.
(February 16, 2022 at 9:32 pm)Jehanne Wrote: By reasonable standards that everyone, believers included, live their lives by, there is no monster in Loch Ness.
Yes, I think it's often been pointed out that the word "proof" has a strict sense and an everyday sense.
The former is only for mathematics and other purely logical issues. That's why people will sometimes remind us that science doesn't deal in proof.
Of course in the everyday sense we prove negatives all the time. In such cases, "proof" means something like "this has been demonstrated sufficiently so that every reasonable person would agree."
So Craig is correct in what he says both about T. Rexes and married bachelors.
