RE: Re: A zillion is too many! (the argument method)

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> MikalacNS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 12/01/00 02:06PM >>>


valid historical evidence is based on documentation - not hearsay.

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CB: Documents are hearsay. They are out of "court" statements introduced to prove the truth of the matter asserted within them. They are a form of "he said that she said that she said..." The fact that the statements are written ( documented) does not in and of itself make them anymore trustworthy than oral statements.

There is a common usage of "documentation" today as if documents have some higher inherent evidentiary reliability than oral speech or something non-documented.

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  whether
Marx's evidence is sufficient to predict the future of a group of humans
called "capitalists" is a matter of controversy.  i'll give my opinion afte
joining the ranks of "experts".

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CB: Yes, I think authorities should be examined critically, but I don't think there should just be a general posture of rejection of sources as authoritative, because we all must examine a number of sources and come to decide which ones we think warrant the status of authority. Otherwise, we would have impossible tasks of proof, having to go back and be eye witnesses to everything ourselves. We must recognize the enormous sociality , trust in fellow researchers, of the historical evidentiary "enterprise" ( something like what entrepreneurs undertake :>))

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in the classroom, because of time constraints and ideological constraints,
we truncate this evidentiary process and just give a bunch of supposedly
"true" propositions for the student to regurgitate on exams.

don't get me started on the sorry state of U.S. education.  i'm a well-known
iconoclast in the ETS AP/IB forums!

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CB: Yes, I'm glad you are a critical thinking about epistemology.

But, note, all this "proof" and "evidence" stuff is analogy from jurisprudence ( I think).

-----Original Message-----
From: Charles Brown [mailto:CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, December 01, 2000 12:52 PM
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L:5231] Re: A zillion is too many! (the argument method)



>>> MikalacNS@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 12/01/00 10:47AM >>>
5. use historical and/or current evidence (facts) to prove theorems;

6. NOT use "laws of history", and "appeals to authority" ("Smith says...",
Marx says ...." ) to "prove" theorems;


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CB: When this philosopher says "prove with evidence" , isn't s/he using an
analogy from jurisprudence ? What about the problems of hearsay when
adducing evidence from history ?  Your teacher believes certain facts about
the 1700's and other past time periods as the "evidentiary" basis for
her/his philosophy , yet all her/his evidence of them is hearsay, as no
living person can report on the 1700's. Hence, even your philosopher relies
on "authority" , i.e. some dead writer who s/he trusts, in her/his proofs
about history. Why does your teacher trust the hearsay sources s/he uses ?
Reference to Marx as authority is no less evidentiarily defective than what
ever process your teacher uses in establishing authoritative sources on
historical periods with no surviving witnesses.