evidence

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Evidence indicates the the appearances of unquestionable Recognizable or immediate, occurring with a particular truth claim full insight . From a philosophy-historical perspective, the term evidence is filled in with its own content in the respective positions.

etymology

The noun Evidenz is derived from the adjective evident, which was borrowed in the 18th century from the Latin word evidens (German evident , apparently ). This adjective is based on the Latin verb videre (German: to see ), from which the German word vision comes. The Latin noun Evidentia is translated with clarity.

Austrian German has a special way of expressing it with the phrase keep something in evidence in the sense of keeping an eye on something . This task was taken over by the historical records office as a military intelligence service in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

Delimitations

The philosophical term evidence must not be confused with the English word evidence , which today is translated more as evidence or evidence , in the legal field also as testimony . In this respect, the English term evidence-based medicine for a medical development direction is not correctly reproduced by the German translation of evidence-based medicine ( false friend ). Similarly, in the social sciences, one speaks of empirical evidence when theories are established on the basis of empirical surveys or confirmed by empirical data.

Another delimitation concerns the term anecdotal evidence : This is usually not evidence in the philosophical sense that has been developed with scientific means. The anecdotal evidence excludes a scientific methodology and thus specifically a necessary reproducibility .

Positions

In philosophy there are different epistemological, more precise proposals on how to analyze a specific term to be connected with it - and positions on whether and to what extent and in what context of human knowledge certain evidence is available. Many epistemologists assume that knowledge is based on the justification of opinions and ultimately on a foundation that can be described as consisting of "evidence". Understanding the concept of evidence or certainty and the mechanisms of the formation of evidence is therefore central to epistemology.

In the philosophy of science , the term evidence mostly refers to those empirical findings that confirm theories or on the basis of which attempts at confirmation fail. Different analyzes are discussed as to what kind of relationship arises for the fact that a certain finding can be regarded as “evidence for” the existence of a certain state of affairs or the truth of certain hypotheses - such as deductive, explanatory or probabilistic relationships.

Epicureanism

Epicurus (341 BC − 271 or 270 BC) - Greek philosopher and founder of Epicureanism - takes an empirical position: According to Epicurus, every knowledge is based on perceptions . They arise through emanation from the objects - and the perceptions are always true.

scholasticism

Johannes Duns Scotus (around 1266–1308) - Scottish theologian and philosopher of scholasticism - describes the evidence as intuitive knowledge . Every concept that one forms of an object necessarily has the property that it can also be applied to other objects. Even the detailed description of a thing does not exclude that another object could be covered with this description. The special essence of an object, its individual unity, can only be recognized through one's own direct observation and not through the description of a third party. Intuitive knowledge is primarily located on the feeling or perception level, the direct basis for recognizing the singularities (the uniqueness) that are contingent (arranged as random properties) in the individual . The singular is already absorbed before the understanding can grasp the universal in the object in abstract knowledge. The conceptual description is directed to the parts of the object and is therefore secondary.

Intuitive knowledge is a process of immediate perception, which on the one hand contains the sensual presence of what is perceived and on the other hand reflects the "here and now" of an object in the mind. In particular, the knowledge of the being of an object is part of this mode of knowledge. Intuitive knowledge makes the existence of an object evident. Without intuitive knowledge, people would know nothing about their inner life. Only intuitive knowledge enables reflection and self-knowledge .

According to Scotus, some methods and processes of knowledge cannot be proven in their origin. This includes:

  • the principles of logic , that is, the principles of identity, contradiction and the excluded third;
  • the objects of immediate, in individual cases given experience through the senses;
  • the intentionality of one's own action, for example the artistic act or the act of will.

rationalism

For René Descartes (1596–1650) the goal of establishing scientific knowledge is the focus. He takes a rationalist position: thinking has to do with the obvious if the ideas are clear and distinct ( clare et distincte ). This becomes evident when the idea is “present and evident to the attentive mind.” The starting point of knowledge and thus of the sciences is the ultimate evidence of the self-thinking subject ( cogito ergo sum ) , which defies all doubt .

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) takes numerous ideas from Descartes, specifies them, and integrates them into drafts of a complex overall theory. For him, too, evidence is not based on empiricism, but on thinking, namely in a luminous certainty that results from the connection of ideas.

Empiricism and skepticism

John Locke (1632–1704) elaborates an empirical position further: All certainty and evidence of our knowledge are based on sensual intuition. For the skeptic David Hume (1711–1776), evidence is merely a subjective certainty that is not suitable for the foundation of science.

enlightenment

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) as a philosopher of the Enlightenment determined evidence as apodictic an intuitive certainty. This is only given in mathematics, because its proofs are made using intuitively understandable axioms.

Mediation Theology

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) emphasized as a mediating theologian in his dialectic that knowledge goes hand in hand with a feeling of conviction, which can be called a feeling of evidence.

Nude Psychology

For Franz Brentano (1838–1917), the founder of nude psychology , the concept of evidence was fundamental to his conception of truth : he viewed the theory of truth as the correspondence of a judgment with an object (correspondence theory) as factually wrong because it necessarily integrates it Must lead circles. He described judgments that express a perfectly simple quality of experience as evident. Such experiences cannot be traced back to simpler determinations. The concept of evidence is therefore not definable, but can only be experienced. There is no doubt about the truth of the sum 1 + 1 = 2.

Evident judgments arise through intuition and are limited to inner perception and simple relationships between concepts . Brentano transferred the equation of true with evident in epistemology to ethics , where evident then means good. Here, too, the term cannot be determined exactly, but only experienced through concrete emotional acts of approval (love) or rejection (hate).

phenomenology

Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) finally developed phenomenology as Brentano's student from nude psychology . For Husserl, evidence is the objective correlate to the subjective belief (“intention”) of a state of affairs; Evidence always exists "wherever a positing intention (especially an asserting one) finds its confirmation through a corresponding and fully adapted perception, be it a suitable synthesis of connected individual perceptions." It can also be evident that an asserted factual situation is not given.

“Evidence is, in the broadest sense, an experience of what is and what is so, just getting to see it itself spiritually. Contradicting what it shows, what experience shows, results in the negative of the evidence (or the negative evidence) and, as its content, the evident falsehood. "

The subjective holding to be true includes the possibility of error. Hence, evidence can be more or less perfect. In the pre-scientific area, evidence and truth are fundamentally relative and this is also sufficient for everyday life. "Science, however, seeks truths that are and remain valid once and for all and for everyone, and accordingly new types of verifications that have been carried out down to the last." The scientific process is a process that is always correcting itself on the basis of new knowledge, but whose goal is the ideal of the perfect Always keep an eye on evidence. Perfect evidence is the starting point for all explanations in science and philosophy. This is possibly a process whose horizon is infinite. Therefore, no finality of the evidence can be asserted in questions that are still open. Even the existence of the world is no apodictic evidence to be asserted, because even the “being of the world based on the natural evidence of experience must no longer be a matter of course for us, but only a phenomenon of validity”.

Analytical philosophy

George Edward Moore (1873–1958) founded the analytical philosophy together with Wittgenstein . Moore was a representative of the common sense philosophy . In his argument, he was directed against philosophical skepticism , i.e. the thesis that there is no reliable knowledge at all (at least about facts of external reality). Following Moore, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) also commented on the problem of giving evidence:

“Yes, I believe that everyone has two human parents; but the Catholics believe that Jesus had only one human mother. And others could believe that there are people who have no parents and do not believe any evidence to the contrary. Catholics also believe that, under certain circumstances, an oblate changes its essence entirely, and at the same time that all evidence proves the opposite. So if Moore said, "I know this is wine and not blood," Catholics would contradict him. "
“ I , LW, am sure that my friend does not have sawdust in his body or in his head, although I have no direct evidence of the senses for it. I'm sure based on what I've been told, what I've read, and my experiences. To doubt this seems madness to me, admittedly in agreement with others; but I agree with them. "
“What we call historical evidence suggests the earth existed long before I was born; - the opposite hypothesis has nothing to do with it. "

criticism

Wilfrid Sellars (1912–1989), a follower of naturalism , developed in his essay Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind a critique of the prerequisites of phenomenology and the analysis of the concept of knowledge associated with sensory data. It is assumed that we have a knowledge of our sensory perception that is independent of our conceptual apparatus as we apply it to the perception of certain objects. This criticism was directed u. a. against the epistemology developed by Clarence Irving Lewis following Kant and against the positivism of Rudolf Carnap .

Wolfgang Stegmüller (1923–1991) describes evidence as “an insight without methodological mediation” and one of the essential pillars of our argument: “All of our arguments, deductions, refutes, and checks are an uninterrupted appeal to evidence, whereby ... the 'appeal to ...' should not be misunderstood as if the evidence were the object of justification. It is the 'how' and not the 'about' of judgment. "

So in science and everyday life we ​​constantly refer to “evident” sentences, “obvious” and “self-evident” insights without ever being able to prove the actual character of these insights, because: “... the problem of evidence is absolutely unsolvable ... all arguments for the evidence represents a vicious circle (vicious circle) and all arguments against it a self-contradiction ... Anyone who argues for the evidence commits a circle because he wants to prove that the evidence exists; what is to be proven should therefore represent the result of the deliberations, while he must already assume evidence from the first moment of his argument. Those who argue against them are contradicting themselves; because he must also assume that his arguments are evident. "

See also

literature

  • Hugo Bergmann : Investigations into the problem of the evidence of inner perception. Niemeyer, Halle on the Saale, 1908
  • Franz Brentano: Truth and Evidence. Meiner, Hamburg 1930, reprint 1975
  • Earl Conee, Richard Feldman, Benjamin Fiedor: Evidentialism. In: Borchert (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Vol. 3, 468f.
  • Joseph Geyser : On Truth and Evidence. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1918
  • Susan Haack : Evidence and Inquiry. Blackwell, Oxford 1993
  • George Heffernan: Significance and Evidence in Edmund Husserl. Bouvier, Bonn 1983
  • Hans-Eduard Hengstenberg : Knowledge as a primal phenomenon. Theses on evidence and cognitive creativity. Röll, Dettelbach 1993
  • Edmund Husserl : Cartesian Meditations. Edited by Elisabeth Ströker , 3rd ed. Meiner, Hamburg 1995. ISBN 978-3-7873-1241-2 ( online )
  • Caspar Isenkrahe : On the problem of evidence. What does it mean, what does it do? Munich 1917
  • Evidence. In: Jürgen Mittelstraß (Hrsg.): Encyclopedia Philosophy and Philosophy of Science. Mannheim 1980
  • Paul Moser: Knowledge and Evidence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1989
  • Manfred Sommer : Evidence at the moment. A phenomenology of pure sensation. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 978-3-518-57867-4
  • Wolfgang Stegmüller : metaphysics, skepticism, science. Berlin 1969

Web links

Wiktionary: Evidence  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Duden: The dictionary of origin. Etymology of the German language. Mannheim 2007, Lemma evident.
  2. ↑ Langescheidt's Latin Dictionary, Lemma evidentia.
  3. ↑ Duden: The foreign dictionary. Mannheim 2007, Lemma Evidenz.
  4. ↑ Brockhaus: Philosophy. Mannheim u. Leipzig 2004, Lemma Epikur.
  5. ↑ René Descartes: Principles of Philosophy, Meiner, Hamburg 1965, p. 15
  6. ^ Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Nouveaux Essais sur L'entendement humain. 1704, IV, chap. 11, § 10
  7. ↑ See for example Rudolf Eisler : Art. Evidenz , in: Kant-Lexikon (1930)
  8. ↑ Georgi Schischkoff (Ed.): Dictionary of Philosophy. 22nd edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1991, Lemma Evidenz.
  9. ^ Franz Brentano: Truth and Evidence. Meiner, Hamburg 1930, reprint 1975, pp. 137–150
  10. ↑ Franz Brentano: From the origin of moral knowledge. Leipzig 1889 / Meiner, Hamburg 1921
  11. ↑ Edmund Husserl: Logical investigations II / 2, § 38, 121, here after Eisler, lc
  12. ↑ Edmund Husserl: Cartesian Meditations , I, § 5
  13. ↑ Edmund Husserl: Cartesian Meditations , I, § 5
  14. ↑ Edmund Husserl: Cartesian Meditations , I, § 7
  15. ↑ See Wittgenstein: About certainty , work edition, vol. 8
  16. ↑ Ludwig Wittgenstein: About certainty, § 239
  17. ↑ Ludwig Wittgenstein: About certainty, § 281
  18. ↑ Ludwig Wittgenstein: About certainty, § 190
  19. ↑ Wolfgang Stegmüller: Metaphysics, Skepticism, Science. Springer, Berlin 1969, p. 168
  20. ↑ Wolfgang Stegmüller: Metaphysics, Skepticism, Science. Springer, Berlin 1969, pp. 168/169