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CJEP 58-2 New Order 5/19/04 9:23 AM Page 75
A Bayesian Approach to the Argument from Ignorance
Mike Oaksford and Ulrike Hahn
School of Psychology, Cardiff University
Abstract In this paper, we re-examine a classic informal
reasoning fallacy, the so-called argumentam ad ignoranti-
am. We argue that the structure of some versions of this
argument parallels examples of inductive reasoning that are
widely viewed as unproblematic. Viewed probabilistically,
these versions of the argument from ignorance constitute a
legitimate form of reasoning; the textbook examples are
inductive arguments that are not unsound but simply weak,
due to the nature of the premises and conclusions involved.
In an experiment, we demonstrated some of the variables
affecting the strength of the argument, and conclude with
some general considerations towards an empirical theory of
argument strength.
Argumentation, in one form or other, pervades most
aspects of our everyday lives. People argue about
whether someone should be convicted of a crime,
whether taking drugs is right or wrong, whether you
should allow a 15-year-old to stay out to midnight, and
so on. Most of these arguments are informal (i.e., they
cannot simply be encoded in standard logic). This is
for several reasons. First, these arguments are often
dialogical, that is, they are conducted between two or
more participants, possessing differing goals and back-
ground knowledge (Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca,
1969; Walton, 1989). Second, the relationships that are
important are defined at a higher level than the micro-
structures of reasoning investigated in formal logic
(Freeman, 1991). Third, by the standards of formal
logic these arguments are often invalid or fallacious.
Although informal argumentation has been studied
intensively in social (for a review see, Voss & Van
Dyke, 2001), developmental (for a review see, Felton
& Kuhn, 2001), and other areas of psychology (e.g.,
Rips, 1998, 2002), to our knowledge, with a few
exceptions (Neuman & Weizman, 2003; Rips, 2002),
the informal fallacies that philosophers, logicians, and
rhetoricians have identified over the last two millennia
have not been investigated experimentally. Moreover,
we know of no attempts to extend psychological theo-
ries of reasoning to try and account for these patterns
Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2004, 58:2, 75-85
of informal argument. We argue that a probabilistic
approach to human reasoning (Chater & Oaksford,
2001; Oaksford & Chater, 1998, 2001) may be extended
to many of these informal arguments. The goal of this
paper is to provide a Bayesian analysis of at least
some versions of the argument fr om ignorance
(Walton, 1992). This is “the mistake that is committed
whenever it is argued that a proposition is true simply
on the basis that it has not been proved false, or that it
is false because it has not been proved true.” For
example:
Ghosts exist because no one has proved (1)
that they do not.
This argument seems unacceptable. However, we
argue that this is not because the argument structure it
embodies is fallacious as has traditionally been
assumed from a logician’s perspective. Rather, the
argument is structurally perfectly acceptable, but weak
due to its specific contents. We present a Bayesian
analysis and report an experiment showing that the
acceptability of the argument from ignorance is affect-
ed by the factors that a Bayesian analysis would pre-
dict.
Generally, logic and the acceptability of informal
arguments dissociate. There are arguments that are log-
ically invalid but that are regarded as informally
acceptable, and there are arguments that are logically
valid but that are regarded as informally unacceptable.
For example, an argument of the form, the key was
turned because the car started and if you turn the key
the car starts, is an instance of the logical fallacy of
affirming the consequent. However, it also an instance
of inference to the best explanation (Harman, 1965),
that is, the best explanation of why the car started is
that the key was turned. Furthermore, the inference
from the key was turned to the key was turned can be
described as the claim that if the key was turned, then
the key was turned. This conditional is necessarily true
because it is truth functionally equivalent to the logical
law of the excluded middle, that is, the key was turned
or the key was not turned, which is necessarily true.
CJEP 58-2 New Order 5/19/04 9:23 AM Page 76
76
However, the inference from God has all the virtues to
God is benevolent, considered as an informal argument
would be condemned as circular. That is, it assumes
what it is supposed to establish, even though it can be
viewed as logically valid (at least given the additional
premise “benevolence is a virtue”). So this argument
succeeds as a logical argument but fails as an informal
one (see e.g., Walton, 1989, 1996). These examples
make it clear that standard logic provides little guid-
ance regarding the acceptability of a pattern of infor-
mal reasoning. This conclusion is further borne out by
recent studies showing that the ability to identify infor-
mal reasoning fallacies is not correlated with deductive
reasoning performance (Neuman, in press; Ricco,
2003).
Furthermore, as many authors have observed, a pat-
tern of informal reasoning that is unacceptable in one
context may be acceptable in another. This can often
be shown by placing the argument in an appropriate
dialogical context (Walton, 1992, 1996). For example, if
a novice Christian was ignorant of God’s properties
and asked his vicar if God was benevolent, then the
reply, “Yes, God has all the virtues,” seems acceptable.
Certainly it seems no less acceptable than the novice
Classicist asking whether Hercules managed to clean
the Augean stables, to be told by his lecturer that,
“Yes, Hercules succeeded in all his labours.” We argue
that acceptability is a matter of degree and that a
Bayesian approach may provide a useful metric of
acceptability for informal arguments. This approach is
related to Kuhn’s (1993) attempts to relate scientific
and informal reasoning. The most general formal
model of scientific reasoning currently available is pro-
vided by Bayesian probability theory (Earman, 1992;
Howson & Urbach, 1989).
In some psychological work, it is assumed that the
fallacies are instances of bad argumentation and the
focus is on the factors that allow people to avoid them
(e.g., Neuman & Weizman, 2003). By contrast, follow-
ing some recent philosophical work in this area (e.g.,
Copi & Burgess-Jackson, 1996; Eemeren &
Grootendorst, 1992; Walton, 1996), we argue that
whether an argument ad ignorantiam is fallacious
depends on the context in which it occurs. Moreover,
we attempt to show that at least some versions can be
viewed as an instance of – fundamentally sound –
inductive inference.
The Argument From Ignorance
Walton (1996) identifies the following form for the
argument from ignorance:
If A were true (false), it would be known (2)
(proved, presumed) to be true (false).
Oaksford and Hahn
A is not known (proved, presumed) to be true (false).
Therefore, A is (presumably) false (true).
In general, of course, lack of knowledge, evidence
or proof, is not sufficient to establish that a proposition
is false. Indeed, if it were, then all kinds of absurd
conclusions could be licensed by such arguments. For
example, the fact that we have no evidence that flying
pigs do not exist outside our solar system, does not
imply that we should conclude that they do (we thank
an anonymous reviewer for this example). Similarly,
the fact that we have no evidence that flying pigs do
exist outside our solar system, does not imply that we
should conclude that they do not. Both these argu-
ments are instances of the argument from ignorance,
and both seem to be strictly fallacies (although our
prior beliefs seem to suggest that the latter argument is
more acceptable).
Walton (1996) identifies three basic types of the
argument from ignorance where fallacies may arise:
shifting the burden of proof, epistemic closure, and
negative evidence.
Shifting the Burden of Proof
The classic example of shifting the burden of proof
comes from the anticommunist trials overseen by
Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. The proposition
in question is that the accused is a communist sympa-
thizer. In one case, the only evidence offered to sup-
port this conclusion was the statement that “…there is
nothing in the files to disprove his Communist connec-
tions” (Kahane, 1992, p. 64). This argument attempts to
place the burden of proof onto the accused person to
establish that he is not a Communist sympathizer.
Indeed, it is an attempt to reverse the normal burden
of proof in law that someone is innocent until proved
guilty, which itself licenses one of the few arguments
from ignorance that some philosophers regard as valid
(e.g., Copi & Cohen, 1990). That is, if the prosecution
cannot prove that a defendant is guilty, then he/she is
innocent. In the McCarthy example, it is clear that the
argument is open to question. The conditional premise
in this argument is, “if A were not a Communist sym-
pathizer, there would be something in the files to
prove it.” However, there is no reason at all to believe
that this should be the case.
Epistemic Closure
The second type of argument from ignorance is
knowledge-based and relies on the concept of epis-
temic closure (De Cornulier, 1988; Walton, 1992) or
what is known as the closed world assumption in
Artificial Intelligence (AI) (Reiter, 1980, 1985). The
negation-as-failure procedure (Clark, 1978) is a clear
CJEP 58-2 New Order 5/19/04 9:23 AM Page 77
A BAYESIAN APPROACH TO THE ARGUMENT FROM IGNORANCE
example, where one argues that a proposition is false
and therefore that its negtion is true, because it Lcannot
be proved from the contents of a data base, . As a
result, the meaning of ¬A, is Lthat A cannot be proved
from the other statements in , that is, negation is intu-
itionistic (McCarty, 1983), not classical. This pattern of
reasoning assumes that all knowledge relevant to this
question is in the
L data base. However, the simple addi-
tion of A to would override this assumption and
consequently this style of reasoning relativizes truth to
truth in a knowledge state. It is clearly also non-
monotonic or defeasible (Oaksford & Chater, 1991)
(i.e., conclusions can be overridden by new informa-
tion).
Negation-as-failure is a practical necessity in knowl-
edge-based systems but there are also more mundane
examples. Walton (1992) provides the example of a
railway timetable. Suppose the point at issue is
whether the 13:00 train from London, Kings Cross to
Newcastle stops at Hatfield. If the timetable is consult-
ed and it is found that Hatfield is not mentioned as
one of the stops, then it can be inferred that the train
does not stop there. That is, it is assumed that the
timetable is epistemically closed such that if there were
further stops they would have been included. The rea-
son why such arguments may fail is again related to
the conditional premise in the argument from igno-
rance. In the real world, the closed world assumption
is rarely justified so it is not reasonable to assume that
if A were true this would be known.
Negative Evidence
The final type of the argument from ignorance that
Walton (1996) identifies is based on negative evidence
and so the conclusion of interest is a hypothesis under
test. If this hypothesis is true, then the experiments
that are conducted to test it would reveal positive
results (i.e., the predictions that can be deduced from
the hypothesis would actually be observed). However,
if they are not observed, then the hypothesis is false. A
mundane example of this style of reasoning is testing
new drugs for safety. The argument from ignorance
here is that a drug is safe if no toxic effects have been
observed in tests on laboratory animals (Copi &
Cohen, 1990). The critical point about such arguments
is that the tests are well conducted and performed in
sufficient number that if the drug were truly toxic the
tests would have revealed it. As with the other argu-
ments from ignorance, if this conditional premise can-
not be established then fallacious conclusions may
result.
There is some disagreement in the literature as to
whether these last two types are genuine arguments
from ignorance. Copi and Cohen (1990), for example,
77
argue that these arguments do in fact rely on knowl-
edge (i.e., for epistemic closure it is known that some-
thing is not known and for negative evidence it is
known that there are failed tests of a hypothesis).
Hence, strictly they are not arguments from, at least
total, ignorance. However, we follow Walton (1996) in
grouping all these types of argument under the same
heading as they do have the same underlying form.
Walton (1992) points out that the conclusion of any
argument from ignorance is open to refutation (i.e., the
conclusion can really only be accepted tentatively). He
suggests dealing with this uncertainty by regarding the
argument from ignorance as a case of presumptive or
nonmonotonic reasoning. That is, conclusions based
on the results of the argument from ignorance are pre-
sumed true until proven otherwise. In the next section,
we discuss some problems for this approach that we
think our probabilistic approach can resolve.
Coping With Uncertainty
Defeasible reasoning, where conclusions can be
defeated, create many problems in designing knowl-
edge-based systems in Artificial Intelligence (for exten-
sive discussion in relation to the psychology of human
reasoning, see Oaksford & Chater, 1991, 1993, 1995,
1998). Problems for this style of reasoning can be
readily illustrated using another form of presumptive
reasoning using conditional rules (Oaksford & Chater,
1991, 1993).
For example, if I know that Jane is a runner I may
infer that she is fit. This is a case of presumptive rea-
soning because she may have a heart condition that
you do not know about. In an AI knowledge based
system, this style of presumptive reasoning is dealt
with in a similar way to negation-as-failure (Reiter,
1985). Jane is fit can be inferred from the fact that she
is a runner, as long as it cannot be proved from the
contents of your knowledge base that Jane is unfit.
While runners tend to be fit, academics tend not to be.
Thus, by the same pattern of reasoning, if you found
out that Fred is an academic, and you could not prove
from the contents of your knowledge base that Fred is
fit, you could conclude that Fred is unfit. What hap-
pens when you find out that Amelia is an academic
runner? The problem here is that, depending on which
general rule is applied first, you can conclude, pre-
sumptively, either that Amelia is fit or that Amelia is
unfit. Overall, therefore, all that can be concluded is
that Amelia is fit or she is unfit. But of course that was
known before any presumptive inferences were drawn
(i.e., this is an uninformative tautology). However,
intuitively, most people would probably infer that
Amelia was fit.
That presumptive, nonmonotonic reasoning systems
CJEP 58-2 New Order 5/19/04 9:23 AM Page 78
78
lead to such counterintuitive, tautological conclusions
is what McDermott (1987) referred to as the “you don’t
want to know” problem and it is related to the “frame
problem” in AI (Oaksford & Chater, 1991; Pylyshyn,
1987). One way round this problem is to deal with
uncertainty in human reasoning using probability theo-
ry (Oaksford & Chater, 1998). Thus the following state-
ments are perfectly consistent with each other: the
probability of being fit given someone is an academic
is low, the probability of being fit given someone is a
runner is high, and the probability of being fit given
someone is an academic runner is high. Consequently,
the intuitively correct inferences are at least possible.
A Bayesian Approach to the Argument From Ignorance
In this section, we show how the negative evidence
case of the argument from ignorance can be under-
stood from a Bayesian perspective. We describe our
approach to the argument from ignorance as
“Bayesian” not only because we use Bayes’ rule. We
also regard the probabilities that figure in these calcu-
lations as subjective degrees of belief and we treat
prior probabilities as important in the reasoning
process (Oaksford & Chater, 1996). There has been
one other attempt, to our knowledge, to offer a
Bayesian justification for an informal reasoning fallacy.
Shogenji (2000) provided such a justification for circu-
larity, which is also the only other informal reasoning
fallacy that has been investigated experimentally (Rips,
2002). However, as far as we are aware, this is the first
attempt to offer a Bayesian analysis of the argument
from ignorance. As we pointed out earlier, the argu-
ment from ignorance can be used nonfallaciously but
when depends on the context. We now show that our
Bayesian account can specify the contextual conditions
in which the argument from inference may be viewed
as nonfallacious.
We use the example of testing drugs for safety and
first show how it fits the form of this argument (see (2)
above):
If drug A were toxic, it would produce toxic effects
in legitimate tests.
Drug A has not produced toxic effects in such tests.
Therefore, A is not toxic.
A Bayesian analysis makes three main testable pre-
dictions, once some reasonable assumptions about
what constitutes a legitimate test are made. First, the
argument from ignorance (what we will refer to as
negative arguments) should be acceptable but less
acceptable than positive arguments. Thus the argument
that drug A is toxic given a toxic effect is observed
(positive argument) is more acceptable than the argu-
Oaksford and Hahn
ment that it is not toxic given no toxic effects are
observed (negative argument, i.e., the argument from
ignorance). Second, people’s prior beliefs should influ-
ence argument acceptance. The higher the degree of
belief in the conclusion of an argument, the more
acceptable an argument should be. Third, the more
evidence found that is compatible with the conclusion
of an argument, the more acceptable it should be. We
look at each prediction in turn.
Negative Versus Positive Arguments
We concentrate in this section on defining the con-
ditions for a legitimate test. Let e stand for an experi-
ment where a toxic effect is observed and ¬e stand for
an experiment where a toxic effect is not observed.
Similarly, let T stand for the hypothesis that the drug
produces a toxic effect and ¬T stand for the alternative
hypothesis that the drug does not produce toxic
effects. The strength of the argument from ignorance is
given by the conditional probability that the hypothe-
sis, T, is false given that a negative test result, ¬e, is
found, P(¬T|¬e). This probability is referred to as neg-
ative test validity. The strength of the argument we
wish to compare with the argument from ignorance is
given by positive test validity, that is, the probability
that the hypothesis, T, is true given that a positive test
result, e, is found, P(T|e). These probabilities can be
calculated from the sensitivity (P(e|T)) and the selectiv-
ity (P(¬e|¬T)) of the test and the prior belief that T is
true (P(T)) using Bayes’ theorem:
P( e | T ) P (T )
P(T | e ) = (3)
P ( e)
P (↓
¬e| ↓
¬ T )(1 − P( T ))
P( ↓¬ T | ↓
¬ e) = (4)
1 − P(e )
P(e) can be calculated from these other probabilities
by total probability. P(e) corresponds to the base rate
of toxic effects in the population. Sensitivity corre-
sponds to the “hit rate” of the test and 1 minus the
selectivity corresponds to the “false positive rate.”
There is a trade-off between sensitivity and selectivity
that is captured in the receiver operating characteristic
curve (Green & Swets, 1966) which plots sensitivity
against the false positive rate (1 - selectivity). Where
the criterion is set along this curve will determine the
sensitivity and selectivity of the test.
Generally, positive test validity will be greater than
negative test validity when P(e) is low and P(e|T) is
high. Toxic effects are abnormal. That is, they are
physical or psychological effects that are uncommon,
CJEP 58-2 New Order 5/19/04 9:23 AM Page 79
A BAYESIAN APPROACH TO THE ARGUMENT FROM IGNORANCE
like, for example, high levels of some toxin or a lower
memory score than normal. This means that the base
rate of toxic effects in the population is low (i.e., P(e)
is low). Another constraint on a legitimate test is that
the sensitivity of the test is high. This is because in
conducting such a test it is an imperative to find toxic
effects if there are any. That is, the costs associated
with false negatives are high. If these two conditions
are met, that is, P(e) is low (i.e., less than .5), and sen-
sitivity is high, that is, P(e|T) > .5, then positive test
validity is greater than negative test validity, P(T|e) >
P(¬T|¬e). Consequently, the positive argument is
stronger than the argument from ignorance.
A further consequence of these two conditions is
that when P(T|e) > P(¬T|¬e), selectivity must be high-
er than sensitivity. In an informal survey on the
Internet of reports of specificity and sensitivity for a
variety of clinical and psychological tests, we found
that specificity was invariably higher than sensitivity,
mean sensitivity = .81 (SD = .10), mean selectivity = .94
(SD = .04), N = 8. This empirical observation combined
with the fact that most tests are trying to detect
uncommon effects (i.e., P(e) is low), suggests that peo-
ple are most likely to regard positive arguments as
stronger than negative arguments.
Prior Belief
Prior belief in the conclusion of the positive argu-
ment or the argument from ignorance should also
strongly affect argument strength. Thus, if prior belief
that the drug produces toxic effects is high (e.g., P(T)
= .8), then for all combinations of sensitivity and selec-
tivity, positive test validity is higher than negative test
validity. Alternatively if prior belief in this hypothesis is
very low (e.g., P(T) = .2), then for all combinations of
sensitivity and selectivity, negative test validity is high-
er than positive test validity. Consequently, people’s
prior beliefs in the conclusion should also influence
judgments of argument strength according to our
Bayesian reformulation.
Accumulating Evidence
These effects of prior belief should be observed
when participants have observed the results of only
one test. Repeated testing should also influence argu-
ment strength. The effects should be predictable by
standard Bayesian updating. Figure 1 shows the results
of five negative (¬e) or five positive trials (e) on P(T|e)
and P(¬T|¬e) with selectivity (P(¬e|¬T) = .9) greater
than sensitivity (P(e|T) = .7) for three different priors,
that is, P(T) = .2, .5, and .8 (indicated as Trial 0).
Figure 1 shows that as the number of trials accumu-
lates, people should become equally convinced by the
argument from ignorance as its positive counterpart,
79
Figure 1. Bayesian updating of positive and negative argument
strength for three different priors (P(T) = .2, .5, and .8) with
sensitivity (P(e|T)) set to .7 and selectivity (P(¬e|¬T)) set to .9.
even when participants start off strongly believing the
positive conclusion (i.e., that the drug has toxic
effects). However, it is well documented that people
tend not to learn as rapidly as Bayes’ theorem predicts,
that is, people tend to be conservative (Edwards,
1968). Consequently, these effects are unlikely to be
observed until a lot more than five trials are observed.
Along with these three main predictions, there are
also more subtle interactions that can be predicted
concerning the polarity of the argument that was the
focus of our concern. First, an interaction between
polarity and prior belief (see above) should be
observed. However, in the experiment we report, par-
ticipants were told that someone either “weakly
believed” or “strongly believed” the conclusion initial-
ly. Weakly believing is not the same as disbelieving.
Weakly believing X means you think X has a better
than even chance (P(X) > .5) of being true but not
much higher. Consequently, we would not expect to
see the full interaction predicted from Figure 1.
However, we might expect to see the increase in
acceptability for positive arguments to decrease when
prior belief is weak. Second, as Figure 1 shows,
because negative arguments are less acceptable than
positive arguments, they should be more influenced by
evidence. So, for example, when the conclusion of
each argument is initially regarded as equally accept-
able (P(S) = .5), then the increase in acceptability from
having seen one piece of evidence to having seen five
pieces of evidence is .25 for a negative argument but
only .125 for a positive argument. In the next section,
we report the results of an experiment designed to test
these predictions of our Bayesian account of the argu-
ment from ignorance.
CJEP 58-2 New Order 5/19/04 9:23 AM Page 80

80 Oaksford and Hahn

TABLE 1
The Mean Acceptance Ratings for Each Dialogue by Evidence (One vs. Fifty Experiments), Prior Belief (Strong vs. Weak), Argument Type
(Positive vs. Negative), and Scenario (Drugs or TV Violence) in the Experiment (N = 84)
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
One Experiment Fifty Experiments
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Strong Weak Strong Weak Total
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Scenario Argument Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Drugs Positive 68.00 (25.10) 53.58 (23.85) 84.20 (19.11) 70.87 (21.58) 69.16 (24.93)
Negative 56.88 (25.16) 38.86 (22.49) 74.69 (22.71) 59.76 (24.07) 57.55 (26.76)
TV Positive 65.33 (26.32) 50.75 (23.24) 80.35 (21.59) 67.26 (22.37) 65.92 (25.60)
Negative 52.61 (26.76) 41.62 (22.66) 72.32 (23.04) 59.24 (22.99) 56.45 (26.29)
Total 60.71 (26.48) 46.20 (23.77) 77.89 (22.07) 64.28 (23.20)
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Experiment
This experiment was designed to test the predic-
tions we derived from our Bayesian account of nega-
tive evidence versions of the argument from ignorance.
That is, our substantial psychological claim is that peo-
ple think about the negative evidence case of the argu-
ment from ignorance in this Bayesian way. We placed
these arguments in their normal dialogical context. We
chose this format because it allowed us to present the
argument in a natural, engaging format, and it also
allowed us to introduce prior beliefs without needing
to explicitly record or influence participants’ own
beliefs. This was achieved by presenting participants
with dialogues between two fictitious interlocuters.
Participants acted as a third party who had to judge
how convinced one of the interlocuters should be by
the argument. Participants would be presented with a
piece of dialogue such as:
Barbara: Are you taking digesterole for it?
Adam: Yes, why?
Barbara: Good, because I strongly believe that it does
not have side effects.
Adam: It does not have any side effects.
Barbara: How do you know?
Adam: Because I know of an experiment where they
failed to find any.
Participants would then be asked, given Adam’s
argument, how strongly they thought that Barbara
should now believe that taking digesterole does not
have side effects (the names of the drugs were ficti-
tious). This is a strong prior belief, weak evidence
(only one experiment), negative polarity argument. In
the weak prior belief condition, “I strongly believe”
was replaced with “I weakly believe.” In the strong
evidence condition, participants were told that there
were 50 experiments involved. In the positive argu-
ment condition, rather than discussing whether the
drug does not have side effects and experiments fail-
ing to find them, the interlocuters discuss whether the
drug has side effects and the experiments that have
found them. We devised two scenarios, one involving
drug side effects and the other involving the relation-
ship between violent behaviour and TV violence (see
Appendix).
Method
Participants. Eighty-four undergraduate psychology
students from Cardiff University participated in this
experiment on a volunteer basis.
Design. The experiment was a 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 repeat-
ed measures design. The independent variables manip-
ulated within each argumentative dialogue were: belief
strength (weak or strong), polarity of the argument
(positive or negative), amount of evidence (1 experi-
ment or 50 experiments), and the scenario (drugs or
TV violence). The dependent measure was the rating
of how strongly one interlocutor should now believe
the conclusion.
Materials and procedure. The 16 dialogues were
presented in a booklet to groups of participants rang-
ing in size from two to five people. There was one
dialogue per page and they appeared in random order
in the booklet. The dialogues are illustrated in the
Appendix. The names of the interlocuters were differ-
ent in each dialogue. Participants were instructed to
read the argumentative dialogue and rate how strongly
one interlocutor should now believe the conclusion
given the argument put forward by the other interlocu-
tor by using a 0 to 100 scale, where 0 denotes the
interlocutor should not believe the conclusion at all
and 100 denotes the interlocutor is certain that the
conclusion is true.
Results
The means (and SDs) for each cell in this experi-
ment are shown in Table 1. We performed a 2
(Scenario: drugs or TV violence) x 2 (Evidence: 1 vs.
50 experiments) x 2 (Polarity: positive vs. negative) x 2
CJEP 58-2 New Order 5/19/04 9:23 AM Page 81
A BAYESIAN APPROACH TO THE ARGUMENT FROM IGNORANCE
(Prior Belief: weak vs. strong) repeated measures
ANOVA with acceptance rating as the dependent vari-
able. The drugs scenario arguments (M = 63.36, SE =
1.02) were marginally more acceptable than the TV
violence arguments (M = 61.19, SE = 1.02), F(1, 83) =
3.59, MSE = 440.55, p = .062.
Positive arguments (M = 67.54, SE = .98) were more
acceptable than negative arguments (M = 57.00, SE =
1.02), F (1, 83) = 53.46, MSE = 698.81, p < .0001.
Acceptability ratings for negative arguments were also
significantly above zero, for all eight dialogues involv-
ing a negative argument, t(83) > 15.83, p < .0001, in all
cases. This result confirms the prediction that the argu-
ment from ignorance would be regarded as acceptable
although not as acceptable as its positive counterpart.
Arguments for which only one piece of evidence
was provided (M = 53.46, SE = 1.01) were less accept-
able than arguments for which 50 pieces of evidence
were provided (M = 71.09, SE = .91), F(1, 83) = 100.73,
MSE = 1,036.93, p < .0001. It was also predicted that
the impact of evidence should be greater for negative
arguments than for positive arguments; such an inter-
action was observed, F(1, 83) = 5.22, MSE = 122.51, p <
.025. All the simple effects comparisons were highly
significant but while both positive and negative argu-
ments were endorsed more strongly when the evi-
dence was strong, this effect was greater for negative
arguments (difference = 19.01) than for positive argu-
ment (difference = 16.23).
Arguments for which prior belief in the conclusion
was strong (M = 69.30, SE = 1.00) were more accept-
able than arguments for which prior belief was weak
(M = 55.24, SE = .97), F(1, 83) = 92.67, MSE = 716.34, p
< .0001. It was also predicted that the advantage for
positive arguments over negative arguments would
reduce when prior belief was weak. The interaction
between prior belief and polarity was not significant,
F(1, 83) < 1. However, the three-way interaction with
scenario was significant, F(1, 83) = 6.46, MSE = 62.80, p
< .025. For the TV scenario, although the belief by
polarity interaction was not significant, F(1, 83) = 1.60,
MSE = 84.75, p = .21, the increase in acceptability for
positive over negative arguments was greater when
prior belief was strong (13.83) than when it was weak
(12.04). This trend was in the predicted direction. For
the drugs scenario, the belief by polarity interaction
was again not significant, F(1, 83) = 3.36, MSE = 84.57,
p = .07, but the increase in acceptability for positive
over negative arguments was greater when the prior
belief was weak (16.48) than when it was strong
(13.87). This trend was opposite to prediction. This
effect may just be a statistical or materials artifact. We
will only know when we use more powerful manipu-
lations of prior belief with a wider variety of materials.
81
This experiment bore out most of the predictions of
our Bayesian account (i.e., participants rated degree of
belief in the conclusion given the arguments they were
presented with varied, in the main, as Bayes’ rule
would predict).
Discussion
In this experiment, we tested the four main predic-
tions that follow from our Bayesian account of the
argument from ignorance. The first was that negative
arguments should be acceptable, but less acceptable
than the positive arguments. This prediction was con-
firmed in that negative arguments were significantly
less acceptable than positive arguments, but their rat-
ings where nevertheless significantly above zero.
Second, the Bayesian account predicts that an argu-
ment should become more acceptable the more evi-
dence is found for its conclusion. This prediction, too,
was confirmed, in that the manipulation of amount of
evidence had a significant effect on participants’ rat-
ings. Third, it was also predicted that the effect of evi-
dence should interact with argument polarity, such that
a greater effect of evidence would be observed for
negative rather than positive arguments. This predic-
tion was also confirmed. Finally, the Bayesian account
predicts that an argument should be more acceptable
the stronger one’s prior belief in the conclusion. This
effect was also observed.
We also believe that our Bayesian account can be
generalized to the epistemic closure form of the argu-
ment from ignorance, because the subjective probabili-
ties involved may vary with other beliefs as well as
with objective experimental tests. If a closed world
assumption can be made, then the epistemic argument
from ignorance is deductively valid. For example, if all
relevant information about where trains stop is dis-
played in the timetable, then the conclusion that the
train does not stop at Hatfield, because it does not say
it does in the timetable, follows deductively. Of course
we may believe that the epistemic closure condition is
met in varying degrees. For example, suppose you ask
one of your friends, who rarely travels on this line,
whether the train stops at Hatfield, and she says she
cannot recall it ever stopping there, so it probably
does not. You are more likely to be confident in this
conclusion if you asked another of your friends who
regularly uses that line. Similarly, you would be more
confident again if you asked the railway guard. In all
cases, your confidence in the conclusion rises in pro-
portion to your degree of belief that the epistemic clo-
sure condition is met. This degree of belief may also
be affected by how effectively you believe that the
search has been conducted. So, for example, if you go
to the inquiry desk where they conduct a computer
CJEP 58-2 New Order 5/19/04 9:23 AM Page 82
82
search, you may be more confident again than when
asking the railway guard. Our future experiments will
investigate the effects of these manipulations.
Our account may even apply to cases of shifting the
burden of proof. This is because it is not always clear
which of the three types of argument from ignorance
(Walton, 199) a particular instance falls under.
Moreover, such an argument may have more than one
construal. For example, the argument that ghosts exist
because no one has proved that they do not may be
used to shift the burden of proof. If we assume
Occam’s Razor as a principle of reasoning, then this
argument is illegitimate because the burden of proof is
on those who want to introduce new entities into the
world. However, it could also be construed as a weak
argument in terms of evidential considerations. That is,
the second premise of the argument, that there is no
evidence that ghosts do not exist, can be questioned.
Extensive research into the paranormal has consistent-
ly been able to explain these phenomena as hoaxes or
normal physical effects. Consequently, just as in the
drugs case, there is a host of legitimate tests that have
indeed provided negative evidence that ghosts do not
exist. In our view, this particular argument from igno-
rance is wrong headed both as a shifting of the burden
of proof or as an argument based on negative evi-
dence.
The effect of prior belief is an instance of a funda-
mental aspect of argumentation – namely, the nature
of the audience and its role in argumentation. Our
prior belief manipulation, which presents the recipi-
ents of the evidential argument as either strongly or
weakly believing the conclusion, constitutes an
instance of differences between audiences. It has been
widely assumed that the nature of the audience is a
crucial variable both from the pragmatic perspective of
seeking to convince and for any rational reconstruction
of argumentation (e.g., Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca,
1969). Hence, it would have been extremely surpris-
ing, and of considerable consequence, if sensitivity to
the nature of an audience had not been found in this
experiment. It is also interesting that for arguments
from ignorance involving negative evidence, such sen-
sitivity can readily be assimilated to a Bayesian
account.
In the Introduction, we observed that our approach
to informal reasoning in general (i.e., beyond the con-
fines of the argument from ignorance) is similar to
Kuhn’s (1993) proposal that scientific reasoning and
informal reasoning are very closely related. In justify-
ing theoretical claims, people tend to concentrate on
explanation in terms of causal mechanism rather than
on evidence (Kuhn, 2001), although this tendency is
mediated by a variety of factors (Brem & Rips, 2000;
Oaksford and Hahn
Kuhn & Felton, 2000). A Bayesian approach may sug-
gest that in justifying their informal conclusions, peo-
ple concentrate on the evidence. Hence, such an
approach cannot account for people’s reliance on
causal mechanism. However, recent proposals for
implementing a Bayesian approach indicate that it may
capture the effects of both evidence and explanation.
In Bayesian networks (Pearl, 1988, 2000) and other
graphical approaches to statistical inference (Glymour
& Cheng, 1998; Spirtes, Glymour, & Scheines, 1993),
joint probability distributions can only be identified
when appropriate causal mechanisms have been speci-
fied. Only once these have been determined can the
force of evidence be assessed. Consequently, a
Bayesian approach may also capture one of the key
distinctions identified in the psychological literature on
informal and scientific reasoning.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we have provided a Bayesian recon-
struction of some versions of a classic informal reason-
ing fallacy – the argument from ignorance. We have
also provided initial support for this reconstruction
through an experimental investigation of the perceived
acceptability of some everyday examples of this argu-
ment structure. This is, as yet, clearly insufficient to
establish that a Bayesian framework is an, or possibly
even the, appropriate framework for the study of infor-
mal argument. However, we think it does demonstrate
the basic utility of the approach both for providing a
novel perspective on classic issues, for suggesting
novel research questions, and for motivating experi-
mental research. We hope this study will provide an
impetus for future experimental investigations of this
kind.
We thank Valerie Thompson for inviting us to contribute
to this very timely special edition of this journal, and Nick
Chater for directing us to the Shogenji (2000) paper. We
also thank Tim van Gelder and an anonymous reviewer for
their very useful and constructive comments on the original
manuscript.
Correspondence concerning this article may be sent to
Mike Oaksford or to Ulrike Hahn, School of Psychology,
Cardiff University, P.O. Box 901, Cardiff, CF10 3YG, Wales,
UK (E-mail: oaksford@cardiff.ac.uk, hahnu@cardiff.ac.uk).
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84 Oaksford and Hahn

Appendix

The 16 dialogues used in the experiment were constructed as follows:

Barbara: Are you taking digesterole for it?

Adam: Yes, why?
Barbara: Good (Well)W, because I strongly (weakly)W believe that it does (not)N have side effects.
Adam: It does (not)N have any side effects.
Barbara: How do you know?
Adam: Because I know of an (50) E experiment(s) where they found side effects (failed to find
any)N.

This is a positive argument with strong prior belief and weak evidence. Changing this argument
means making the following changes: those marked “N” for a negative argument; those marked “W” for
a weak prior belief argument; and those marked “E” for a strong evidence argument. In each case
either the word or phrase in parentheses is introduced or it replaces the word or phrase in italics. Half
the dialogues used the made-up drug name “digesterole,” the other half used “parazepam.” The TV
violence dialogues were:

Barbara: Do you let your children watch TV violence?

Adam: Yes, why?
Barbara: That’s OK (Well)W, I strongly (weakly)W believe that watching TV violence does (not)N lead
to violent behaviour.
Adam: It does (not)N lead to violent behaviour.
Barbara: How do you know?
Adam: Because I know of an (50) E experiment(s) where they found (failed to show)N that it does.

Sommaire
L’article examine à nouveau, dans une perspective
bayesienne, un sophisme du raisonnement informel clas-
sique, à savoir argumentam ad ignorantiam. Le sophisme
est le suivant : l’erreur commise lorsqu’il est affirmé qu’une
proposition est vraie tout bonnement parce que sa fausseté
n’a pas été prouvée ou qu’elle est fausse parce que sa
véracité n’a pas été prouvée. En voici un exemple : les fan-
tômes existent parce que personne n’a prouvé qu’ils n’exis-
tent pas. Ces derniers temps, des philosophes ont com-
mencé à recenser des conditions contextuelles dans
lesquelles l’argument fondé sur l’ignorance est acceptable
(van Eemeren et Grootendorst, 1993; Walton, 1992, 1996).
Les auteurs soutiennent qu’une analyse bayesienne de l’ar-
gument fondé sur l’ignorance est susceptible de produire
une mesure de l’acceptabilité de cette forme d’argument.
Dans l’article, ils présentent une analyse en ce sens et un
test expérimental de ces prédictions.
Walton (1996) a reconnu trois formes de l’argument
fondé sur l’ignorance : transfert du fardeau de la preuve,
clôture épistémique, preuves négatives. Les auteurs se con-
centrent sur le cas des preuves négatives, par exemple la
conclusion qu’une drogue n’est pas toxique est acceptée du
fait qu’aucun effet toxique n’a été observé. Selon une
analyse bayesienne, tant que le taux de base des effets
toxiques est faible et la sensibilité du test est élevée, alors
l’argument reposant sur l’ignorance est acceptable, quoique
dans une moindre mesure que sa contrepartie positive,
c’est-à-dire que la drogue est toxique parce que des effets
toxiques ont été observés. Qui plus est, le volume des
preuves et des croyances antérieures devrait aussi influ-
encer l’acceptabilité de la conclusion.
Une expérience a permis de tester les prédictions préc-
itées en variant les trois facteurs, nommément polarité des
arguments (négatifs, positifs), croyances antérieures (fortes,
faibles) et preuves (1 test, 50 tests) dans le cadre de dia-
logues argumentatifs. Deux scénarios ont été retenus : l’un
concernant la violence à la télévision, l’autre des tests sur
des drogues. La plupart des prédictions de l’analyse baye-
sienne ont été confirmées. L’argument fondé sur l’ignorance
a été avalisé, mais avec moins de vigueur que les argu-
ments positifs. Plus les croyances antérieures d’une person-
ne étaient fortes et plus les preuves étaient nombreuses,
plus le crédit accordé à la conclusion était grand. Par
ailleurs, l’interaction entre la polarité et les autres facteurs
était largement conforme aux prédictions du théorème de
Bayes.

Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 2004, 58:2, 84

 CJEP 58-2 New Order 5/19/04 9:23 AM Page 85

A BAYESIAN APPROACH TO THE ARGUMENT FROM IGNORANCE 85

En conclusion, une approche bayesienne des sophismes l’étendant à des arguments informels. De plus, pareille
du raisonnement informel semblerait ouvrir la porte à un analyse pourrait s’appliquer aisément à d’autres formes de
domaine d’enquête prometteur. Elle généralise l’approche l’argument fondé sur l’ignorance et par-delà celui-ci et
probabiliste du raisonnement (Oaksford et Chater, 2001) en expliquer d’autres types d’argumentation informelle.

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