#15 - The typological theory of species classification

[Adam Tyson]

We do need to accept the premises as facts in most cases, queenbee, but in this case the fact that we have to accept is "the theory says X." It's true that the theory says that, but that doesn't mean that the theory is correct!

Here's an analogy:

"The former President says he declassified all those documents that he had stored in his home office before taking them from the White House. Therefore, none of them were classified."

We have to accept the fact that the Former President SAID that he declassified the documents. It's true that he said it. But does that prove he actually did it? Not at all! He could totally be lying about that! We can accept the premise (he said he did it) without accepting that he was telling the truth. That's a crucial difference!

In this case, we can accept that one theory says X is true while another theory says X is not true. But we don't have to assume that the first theory is right and conclude that the second one is wrong; we could instead assume the second one is the correct theory. Or, we could choose to believe that both theories are wrong. We accept that the theories say what they say, but we don't have to accept that what either of them says is factually correct.