Evidence
Evidence for a proposition is what supports the proposition. It is usually understood as an indication that the supported proposition is true. What role evidence plays and how it is conceived varies from field to field.
In
In phenomenology, evidence is understood in a similar sense. Here, however, it is limited to intuitive knowledge that provides immediate access to truth and is therefore indubitable. In this role, it is supposed to provide ultimate justifications for basic philosophical principles and thus turn philosophy into a rigorous science. However, it is highly controversial whether evidence can meet these requirements.
In
Other fields, including the sciences and the law, tend to emphasize more the public nature of evidence (for example, scientists tend to focus on how the data used during statistical inference are generated).[1]
In order for something to act as evidence for a hypothesis, it has to stand in the right relation to it. In
Nature of evidence
Notion
Understood in its broadest sense, evidence for a proposition is what supports this proposition. Traditionally, the term is sometimes understood in a narrower sense: as the intuitive knowledge of facts that are considered indubitable.[3][4][5] In this sense, only the singular form is used. This meaning is found especially in phenomenology, in which evidence is elevated to one of the basic principles of philosophy, giving philosophy the ultimate justifications that are supposed to turn it into a rigorous science.[6][4][7] In a more modern usage, the plural form is also used. In academic discourse, evidence plays a central role in epistemology and in the philosophy of science. Reference to evidence is made in many different fields, like in science, in the legal system, in history, in journalism and in everyday discourse.[8][9][10] A variety of different attempts have been made to conceptualize the nature of evidence. These attempts often proceed by starting with intuitions from one field or in relation to one theoretical role played by evidence and go on to generalize these intuitions, leading to a universal definition of evidence.[8][9][11]
One important intuition is that evidence is what
Characteristics
On the other hand, Aristotle, phenomenologists, and numerous scholars accept that there could be several degrees of evidence.[16] For instance, while the outcome of a complex equation may become more or less evident to a mathematician after hours of deduction, yet with little doubts about it, a simpler formula would appear more evident to them.
Riofrio has detected some characteristics that are present in evident arguments and proofs. The more they are evident, the more these characteristics will be present. There are six intrinsic characteristics of evidence:[17]
- The truth lies in what is evident, while falsehood or irrationality, although it may appear evident at times, lacks true evidence.
- What is evident aligns coherently with other truths acquired through knowledge. Any insurmountable incoherence would indicate the presence of error or falsehood.
- Evident truths are based on necessary reasoning.
- The simplest truths are the most evident. They are self-explanatory and do not require argumentation to be understood by the intellect. However, for those lacking education, certain complex truths require rational discourse to become evident.
- Evident truths do not need justification; they are indubitable. They are intuitively grasped by the intellect, without the need for further discourse, arguments, or proof.
- Evident truths are clear, translucent, and filled with light.
In addition, four subjective or external characteristics can be detected over those things that are more or less evident:
- The evident instills certainty and grants the knower a subjective sense of security, as they believe to have aligned with the truth
- Initially, evident truths are perceived as natural and effortless, as Aristotle highlighted. They are innately present within the intellect, fostering a peaceful and harmonious understanding.
- Consequently, evident truths appear to be widely shared, strongly connected to common sense, which comprises generally accepted beliefs.
- Evident truths are fertile ground: they provide a solid foundation for other branches of scientific knowledge to flourish.
These ten characteristics of what is evident allowed Riofrio to formulate a test of evidence to detect the level of certainty or evidence that one argument or proof could have.[17]
Different approaches to evidence
Important theorists of evidence include
In epistemology
The guiding intuition within epistemology concerning the role of evidence is that it is what justifies
It is sometimes held that only propositional mental states can play this role, a position known as "propositionalism".[19][22] A mental state is propositional if it is an attitude directed at a propositional content. Such attitudes are usually expressed by verbs like "believe" together with a that-clause, as in "Robert believes that the corner shop sells milk".[23][24] Such a view denies that sensory impressions can act as evidence. This is often held as an argument against this view since sensory impressions are commonly treated as evidence.[8][18] Propositionalism is sometimes combined with the view that only attitudes to true propositions can count as evidence.[19] On this view, the belief that the corner shop sells milk only constitutes evidence for the belief that the corner shop sells dairy products if the corner shop actually sells milk. Against this position, it has been argued that evidence can be misleading but still count as evidence.[11][9]
This line of thought is often combined with the idea that evidence, propositional or otherwise, determines what it is
In phenomenology
The meaning of the term "evidence" in phenomenology shows many parallels to its epistemological usage, but it is understood in a narrower sense. Thus, evidence here specifically refers to intuitive knowledge, which is described as "self-given" (selbst-gegeben).[27] This contrasts with empty intentions, in which one refers to states of affairs through a certain opinion, but without an intuitive presentation.[28] This is why evidence is often associated with the controversial thesis that it constitutes an immediate access to truth.[29] In this sense, the evidently given phenomenon guarantees its own truth and is therefore considered indubitable. Due to this special epistemological status of evidence, it is regarded in phenomenology as the basic principle of all philosophy.[27][6] In this form, it represents the lowest foundation of knowledge, which consists of indubitable insights upon which all subsequent knowledge is built.[30] This evidence-based method is meant to make it possible for philosophy to overcome many of the traditionally unresolved disagreements and thus become a rigorous science.[31][32][6] This far-reaching claim of phenomenology, based on absolute certainty, is one of the focal points of criticism by its opponents. Thus, it has been argued that even knowledge based on self-evident intuition is fallible. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that even among phenomenologists, there is much disagreement about the basic structures of experience.[33]
In philosophy of science
In the sciences, evidence is understood as what confirms or disconfirms scientific hypotheses.[8][9] The term "confirmation" is sometimes used synonymously with that of "evidential support".[15] Measurements of Mercury's "anomalous" orbit, for example, are seen as evidence that confirms Einstein's theory of general relativity. This is especially relevant for choosing between competing theories. So in the case above, evidence plays the role of neutral arbiter between Newton's and Einstein's theory of gravitation.[9] This is only possible if scientific evidence is public and uncontroversial so that proponents of competing scientific theories agree on what evidence is available. These requirements suggest scientific evidence consists not of private mental states but of public physical objects or events.[9][14]
It is often held that evidence is in some sense prior to the hypotheses it confirms. This was sometimes understood as temporal priority, i.e. that we come first to possess the evidence and later form the hypothesis through induction. But this temporal order is not always reflected in scientific practice, where experimental researchers may look for a specific piece of evidence in order to confirm or disconfirm a pre-existing hypothesis.
A central issue for the scientific conception of evidence is the problem of underdetermination, i.e. that the evidence available supports competing theories equally well.[34][35] So, for example, evidence from our everyday life about how gravity works confirms Newton's and Einstein's theory of gravitation equally well and is therefore unable to establish consensus among scientists. But in such cases, it is often the gradual accumulation of evidence that eventually leads to an emerging consensus. This evidence-driven process towards consensus seems to be one hallmark of the sciences not shared by other fields.[9][36]
Another problem for the conception of evidence in terms of confirmation of hypotheses is that what some scientists consider the evidence to be may already involve various theoretical assumptions not shared by other scientists. This phenomenon is known as theory-ladenness.[9][37] Some cases of theory-ladenness are relatively uncontroversial, for example, that the numbers output by a measurement device need additional assumptions about how this device works and what was measured in order to count as meaningful evidence.[38] Other putative cases are more controversial, for example, the idea that different people or cultures perceive the world through different, incommensurable conceptual schemes, leading them to very different impressions about what is the case and what evidence is available.[39] Theory-ladenness threatens to impede the role of evidence as neutral arbiter since these additional assumptions may favor some theories over others. It could thereby also undermine a consensus to emerge since the different parties may be unable to agree even on what the evidence is.[9][40] When understood in the widest sense, it is not controversial that some form of theory-ladenness exists. But it is questionable whether it constitutes a serious threat to scientific evidence when understood in this sense.[9]
Nature of the evidential relation
Probabilistic approaches, also referred to as Bayesian confirmation theory, explain the evidential relation in terms of probabilities. They hold that all that is necessary is that the existence of the evidence increases the likelihood that the hypothesis is true. This can be expressed mathematically as .[42][43] In words: a piece of evidence (E) confirms a hypothesis (H) if the conditional probability of this hypothesis relative to the evidence is higher than the unconditional probability of the hypothesis by itself.[44] Smoke (E), for example, is evidence that there is a fire (H), because the two usually occur together, which is why the likelihood of fire given that there is smoke is higher than the likelihood of fire by itself. On this view, evidence is akin to an indicator or a symptom of the truth of the hypothesis.[11] Against this approach, it has been argued that it is too liberal because it allows accidental generalizations as evidence. Finding a nickel in one's pocket, for example, raises the probability of the hypothesis that "All the coins in my pockets are nickels". But, according to Alvin Goldman, it should not be considered evidence for this hypothesis since there is no lawful connection between this one nickel and the other coins in the pocket.[9]
Hypothetico-deductivism is a non-probabilistic approach that characterizes the evidential relations in terms of deductive consequences of the hypothesis. According to this view, "evidence for a hypothesis is a true observational consequence of that hypothesis".[8][15][45][46] One problem with the characterization so far is that hypotheses usually contain relatively little information and therefore have few if any deductive observational consequences. So the hypothesis by itself that there is a fire does not entail that smoke is observed. Instead, various auxiliary assumptions have to be included about the location of the smoke, the fire, the observer, the lighting conditions, the laws of chemistry, etc. In this way, the evidential relation becomes a three-place relation between evidence, hypothesis and auxiliary assumptions.[15][47] This means that whether a thing is evidence for a hypothesis depends on the auxiliary assumptions one holds. This approach fits well with various scientific practices. For example, it is often the case that experimental scientists try to find evidence that would confirm or disconfirm a proposed theory. The hypothetico-deductive approach can be used to predict what should be observed in an experiment if the theory was true.[47] It thereby explains the evidential relation between the experiment and the theory.[15] One problem with this approach is that it cannot distinguish between relevant and certain irrelevant cases. So if smoke is evidence for the hypothesis "there is fire", then it is also evidence for conjunctions including this hypothesis, for example, "there is fire and Socrates was wise", despite the fact that Socrates's wisdom is irrelevant here.[8]
According to the positive-instance approach, an observation sentence is evidence for a universal hypothesis if the sentence describes a positive instance of this hypothesis.[41][48][49] For example, the observation that "this swan is white" is an instance of the universal hypothesis that "all swans are white". This approach can be given a precise formulation in first-order logic: a proposition is evidence for a hypothesis if it entails the "development of the hypothesis".[8][15] Intuitively, the development of the hypothesis is what the hypothesis states if it was restricted to only the individuals mentioned in the evidence. In the case above, we have the hypothesis "" (all swans are white) which, when restricted to the domain "{a}", containing only the one individual mentioned in the evidence, entails the evidence, i.e. "" (this swan is white).[8][15] One important shortcoming of this approach is that it requires that the hypothesis and the evidence are formulated in the same vocabulary, i.e. use the same predicates, like "" or "" above. But many scientific theories posit theoretical objects, like electrons or strings in physics, that are not directly observable and therefore cannot show up in the evidence as conceived here.[8][15]
Empirical evidence (in science)
In scientific research evidence is accumulated through observations of phenomena that occur in the natural world, or which are created as experiments in a laboratory or other controlled conditions. Scientists tend to focus on how the data used during statistical inference are generated.[1] Scientific evidence usually goes towards supporting or rejecting a hypothesis.
The burden of proof is on the person making a contentious claim. Within science, this translates to the burden resting on presenters of a paper, in which the presenters argue for their specific findings. This paper is placed before a panel of judges where the presenter must defend the thesis against all challenges.
When evidence is contradictory to predicted expectations, the evidence and the ways of making it are often closely scrutinized (see
Law
In law, the production and presentation of evidence depend first on establishing on whom the
After deciding who will carry the burden of proof, the evidence is first gathered and then presented before the court:
Collection
In a criminal investigation, rather than attempting to prove an abstract or hypothetical point, the evidence gatherers attempt to determine who is responsible for a criminal act. The focus of criminal evidence is to connect physical evidence and reports of witnesses to a specific person.[50]
Presentation
The path that physical evidence takes from the scene of a crime or the arrest of a suspect to the courtroom is called the chain of custody. In a criminal case, this path must be clearly documented or attested to by those who handled the evidence. If the chain of evidence is broken, a defendant may be able to persuade the judge to declare the evidence inadmissible.
Presenting evidence before the court differs from the gathering of evidence in important ways. Gathering evidence may take many forms; presenting evidence that tends to prove or disprove the point at issue is strictly governed by rules. Failure to follow these rules leads to any number of consequences. In law, certain policies allow (or require) evidence to be excluded from consideration based either on indicia relating to reliability, or broader social concerns. Testimony (which tells) and exhibits (which show) are the two main categories of evidence presented at a trial or hearing. In the United States, evidence in federal court is admitted or excluded under the Federal Rules of Evidence.[51]
Burden of proof
The burden of proof is the obligation of a party in an argument or dispute to provide sufficient evidence to shift the other party's or a third party's belief from their initial position. The burden of proof must be fulfilled by both establishing confirming evidence and negating oppositional evidence. Conclusions drawn from evidence may be subject to criticism based on a perceived failure to fulfill the burden of proof.
Two principal considerations are:
- On whom does the burden of proof rest?
- To what degree of certitude must the assertion be supported?
The latter question depends on the nature of the point under contention and determines the quantity and quality of evidence required to meet the burden of proof.
In a criminal trial in the United States, for example, the prosecution carries the burden of proof since the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Similarly, in most civil procedures, the plaintiff carries the burden of proof and must convince a judge or jury that the preponderance of the evidence is on their side. Other legal standards of proof include "reasonable suspicion", "probable cause" (as for arrest), "prima facie evidence", "credible evidence", "substantial evidence", and "clear and convincing evidence".
In a philosophical debate, there is an implicit burden of proof on the party asserting a claim, since the default position is generally one of neutrality or unbelief. Each party in a debate will therefore carry the burden of proof for any assertion they make in the argument, although some assertions may be granted by the other party without further evidence. If the debate is set up as a resolution to be supported by one side and refuted by another, the overall burden of proof is on the side supporting the resolution.
Specific types of evidence
- Digital evidence
- Personal experience
- Physical evidence
- Relationship evidence
- Scientific evidence
- Testimonial evidence
- Trace evidence
See also
References
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External links
- Evidence at PhilPapers
- Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). "Evidence". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- "Evidence". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Evidence at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project
- ASTME141 Standard Practice for Acceptance of Evidence Based on the Results of Probability Sampling
- Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911. .