• Korean Journal of Logic
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.77-104
• /
• 2011

Professor Hasuk Song argues that every argumentum ad ignorantiam, i.e. the argument from ignorance is not fallacious, and social contexts play a crucial role to judge whether the argument is fallacious or not. I generally agree with him, but I think we cannot have help from his position without knowing what those contexts are. In this paper, I argue that the concept of burden of proof is the crucial one to judge whether ad ignorantiam is plausible or not, and then present four criterions who have the burden of proof. There is a burden of proof on one who argues first, who insists the doubtful ones, who has powers, and who thinks that a situation is not dangerous.