📓 In your handwritten notebooks
- Feb – March 21 2026, pp. 46 — Shifting the burden (fallacy) → open PDF p52 (file not included in this release)
Index: Personal Journal
Demanding that your opponent disprove your claim instead of supporting it yourself. The rule it breaks: whoever asserts, proves. A claim with no support isn’t the default position just because nobody has refuted it yet.
How it shows up
- “Prove it doesn’t exist.” — appeal to ignorance in disguise
- “You can’t explain X, therefore my explanation stands.”
- Restating the claim more loudly when asked for the argument
- Treating your own position as the neutral baseline that requires no defense
The counter
- Name the structure, not the fallacy: “You made the claim — what’s the support for it?” Naming the Latin usually loses the audience.
- Re-establish presumption. Who holds it here, and why? → The Practice of Argumentation - Effective Reasoning > Chapter 3: The Emergence of Controversy (Page 67)
- Decline the frame once, clearly, then return to your case. Don’t spend the debate litigating whose job it is.
- If they genuinely have the presumption, take the burden and carry it — refusing an obligation you actually have reads worse than meeting it.
Related → Logical Fallacies · Defending Your Case > Appeal to Ignorance · Debate Playbook (MOC) (Step 0: Frame)
