Talk:Hitchens's razor

Justinian quote

"Proof lies on he who asserts, not on he who denies." Wouldn't this be translated into grammatical English as "Proof lies on him who asserts, not on him who denies"? "Him" is the object of "lies," then you switch case because "who" is the subject of "asserts" or "denies." Has someone 'corrected' it? Yes! Perhaps even Alan Watson, although his copy editor should have caught it. See the article Presumption of Innocence, History section. Monado (talk) 19:09, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Criticisms

Both criticisms of this axiom appear very weak to me, with the first apparently insisting that the burden of proof is on everyone else to prove a negative- which is logically impossible and leads to obvious absurdities if applied in practice i.e: "We need to believe in Atlantis, aliens, ghosts, cryptids, fortune telling, etc. even without evidence because no one has proven concretely that they don't exist." (one could conjure literally anything this way and then insist it's everyone else's job to disprove it.) and the second is literally just circular reasoning of "I believe it because I want to believe it and I want to believe it because I believe it"- with the implication going even a step further that other people should believe it for this non-reason as well. Surely there are better critiques of 'avowed militant atheist' Hitchen's razor than these two non-arguments? 2603:3018:CD9:100:91:F832:8BC6:36B6 (talk) 21:39, 21 November 2023 (UTC)Phoenix

From the article:

• The idea is that all beliefs are based on other beliefs, and some "foundational" or "basic beliefs" just need to be assumed to be true in order to start somewhere

This idea that all beliefs are ultimately based on "foundational" or "basic beliefs" (that must themselves be taken on faith) has been examined and rejected by epistemologists in the books Groundless Belief and The Retreat to Commitment. A Wikipedia editor more competent than me might want to add these citations to the discussion. Both books argue for a standard of evidence based on broad coherence of tentatively held beliefs. The author of the second book had strong intellectual and personal connections to Karl Popper. 213.123.14.238 (talk) 14:15, 16 January 2024 (UTC)

Should be “Hitchens’ razor”, not “Hitchens’s razor”

While both Hitchens’ razor and Hitchens’s razor are technically grammatically correct, the additional “s” is not needed, it is much less common, and it will appear awkward to many – if you doubt this, ask yourself how often do you come across Jesus’s vs. the more usual Jesus’? Therefore the page should be moved to “Hitchens’ razor”. 103.12.191.80 (talk) 14:03, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

This has been discussed many times before, read the archives if you want to know why the current title was chosen. NLeeuw (talk) 15:40, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Previous versions

I took a course in argumentation and debate over 50 years ago, and at the time I had a Jesuit textbook on critical thinking in debate. One of the principles stated there was "That which is gratuitously asserted is just as easily denied." The version by Hitchens says the same thing, while giving a clearer translation of "gratuitously" (which meant presented without evidence). I do not remember the author or title of the text with this statement, but some search should be done for earlier versions of this razor. EricP (talk) 07:16, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

That sounds like a paraphrase for onus probandi mentioned in Burden of proof (philosophy). According to the OED entry the phrase was first used in 1722. I found the use of the phrase "whatever is gratuitously asserted may be as gratuitously denied." in a book from 1829 here. I think the article use to have a section about earlier versions, but it got removed. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 06:38, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Ah yes @Hippo43: here and here removed them. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 06:45, 8 October 2024 (UTC)