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In carefully designed scientific experiments, null results can be interpreted as evidence of absence. [7] Whether the scientific community will accept a null result as evidence of absence depends on many factors, including the detection power of the applied methods, the confidence of the inference, as well as confirmation bias within the community.
Argument from silence – Argument based on the absence of statements in historical documents, rather than their presence; Hitchens's razor – General rule rejecting claims made without evidence; List of fallacies; Martha Mitchell effect – Labelling real experiences as delusional; Occam's razor – Philosophical problem-solving principle
For example, a doctor may prescribe a patient medication for an illness, but it could later turn out that a placebo is equally effective. Thus, untrue concepts could appear to be working contrary to the purpose of the pragmatic test. However, it has validity as a test, particularly in the form William Ernest Hocking called "negative pragmatism ...
For example, the proposition that bachelors are unmarried men is true, in this view, because the concept of the predicate (unmarried men) is contained in the concept of the subject (bachelor). A contemporary reading of the concept-containment theory of truth is to say that every true proposition is an analytically true proposition.
For example, if the general theory of relativity is confirmed by the perihelion of Mercury then, according to total holism, the conjunction of the general theory of relativity with the claim that the moon is made of cheese also gets confirmed. More controversially, the two conjuncts are meant to be confirmed in equal measure.
Once you embark into refined knowledge, there are certain criteria as to what constitutes 'evidence.' In other words, there are rules governing how we know what we know (This should be recognized as an epistemological concept). And depending on the choice of your root metaphor, different criteria exist as to what constitutes good evidence.
Philosophers are interested in how the mind relates to reality and the overall nature of knowledge. [2] Epistemology battles with skepticism by trying to come up with a base from which all knowledge and science can be built up. Skepticism promotes an impasse to this because we must doubt what we know in order to know if what we know is indeed true.
It is a problem in epistemology and in any general situation where a statement has to be justified. [1] [2] [3] The argument is also known as diallelus [4] or diallelon, from Greek di' allelon "through or by means of one another" and as the epistemic regress problem. It is an element of the Münchhausen trilemma. [5]