Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Vagueness' and 'The Emergence of Probability'

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2 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 3. Evidentialism / a. Evidence
In the medieval view, only deduction counted as true evidence [Hacking]
     Full Idea: In the medieval view, evidence short of deduction was not really evidence at all.
     From: Ian Hacking (The Emergence of Probability [1975], Ch.3)
     A reaction: Hacking says the modern concept of evidence comes with probability in the 17th century. That might make it one of the most important ideas ever thought of, allowing us to abandon certainties and live our lives in a more questioning way.
Formerly evidence came from people; the new idea was that things provided evidence [Hacking]
     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.
     From: Ian Hacking (The Emergence of Probability [1975], Ch.4)
     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.