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Full Idea
In the medieval view, people provided the evidence of testimony and of authority. What was lacking was the seventeenth century idea of the evidence provided by things.
Gist of Idea
Formerly evidence came from people; the new idea was that things provided evidence
Source
Ian Hacking (The Emergence of Probability [1975], Ch.4)
Book Ref
Hacking,Ian: 'The Emergence of Probability' [CUP 1975], p.32
A Reaction
A most intriguing distinction, which seems to imply a huge shift in world-view. The culmination of this is Peirce's pragmatism, in Idea 6948, of which I strongly approve.
Related Idea
Idea 6948 Doubts should be satisfied by some external permanency upon which thinking has no effect [Peirce]
| 7447 | Probability was fully explained between 1654 and 1812 [Hacking] |
| 7448 | Probability is statistical (behaviour of chance devices) or epistemological (belief based on evidence) [Hacking] |
| 7459 | Follow maths for necessary truths, and jurisprudence for contingent truths [Hacking] |
| 7449 | Epistemological probability based either on logical implications or coherent judgments [Hacking] |
| 7450 | In the medieval view, only deduction counted as true evidence [Hacking] |
| 7451 | Formerly evidence came from people; the new idea was that things provided evidence [Hacking] |
| 7452 | An experiment is a test, or an adventure, or a diagnosis, or a dissection [Hacking, by PG] |
| 7454 | Gassendi is the first great empiricist philosopher [Hacking] |