making reasonable assumptions and burden of proof

(hypothetical example, real example is technical and not easy to describe)

authority says:

these are the acceptable bright colors:

1. white

2. yellow

3. lime green

4. pink

 

Someone who's a really fan of black and purple says:

But the authority didn't say "black or purple is not an acceptable bright color."

 

How do you respond to that?

Are there any formal or informal fallacies here?

Is "weasel talk" in the list?

is this "sophistry"?

We're expected to make reasonable assumptions,

It's not like the guy was asking if "orange" was an accceptable bright color even if the authority didn't explicitly allow it.

Black is pretty far from the 4 listed.

Who has burden of proof?

 

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more context:

The real example has to do with religious text in an oral tradition,

with memorized core principles, necessarily terse for ease of memory,

and people are expected to make the reasonable deductions, infererences, etc.

Religious texts in an oral tradition are not written in bullet proof lawyerese for modern day weasels to exploit loopholes.

 

 

 

This argument does not provide clear examples of full-fledged logical fallacies; however, it can be regarded as an example of poor reasoning and misunderstanding. The person who is arguing that black or purple may be considered as an acceptable bright color is not comprehending the explicit definition of bright colors provided by the authority. This can be seen as an example of incorrect interpretation or misunderstanding rather than a formal or informal fallacy.

"Weasel talk," if defined as using vague or ambiguous language to avoid commitment or mislead, or using many unnecessary words to cloud the issues, is not present here. Both parties are straightforward in their communication.

This argument would not be categorized as "sophistry," defined as subtly deceptive reasoning or argumentation.

The person who is arguing that black or purple may be considered as an acceptable bright color appears to be making an assumption without providing enough support for it. Commonly, the burden of proof would be placed on the person making such a claim, here the fan of black and purple.

If we analyze using basic principles, black and purple can be seen as visibly far from bright colors, this is under the assumption that 'brightness' is an agreed upon and understood concept in this context. So, generally, the burden of proof falls on the person challenging the presented list of bright colors and suggesting that black or purple should be included.

Typically when I see statements like this, it's in something like a design guide or a dress code. It can generally be assumed that if there is only a list of things that are acceptable, everything else is unacceptable. If items that were not on the list were acceptable just because they were not explicitly named as unacceptable, then the list would be meaningless. I don't think there's really a burden of proof here - if any other color was to be used, then it would be on the authority that writes and enforces the rules to change the rules or make an exception.

A friend found this, and it's a pretty good match:

what is: argument from silence fallacy?

https://ses.edu/the-argument-from-silence/

...Similar to the fallacy of an appeal to ignorance, the argument from silence is a fallacy of weak induction that treats the absence of evidence as evidence itself. This logical fallacy essentially takes an appeal to authority and flips it around. The appeal to authority says that because an authority A says x,  then x must be true; the argument from silence says that because an authority A didn’t say x, then x must be false. In effect, the silence of the authority regarding some particular claim is taken as evidence against the claim itself.

The actual real life situation:

https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2024/05/sn-4840-ven-sunyos-argument-in-favor-of.html