Knowledge And Evidence
...and how can this limit be established?
The making of knowledge is the process in which personal opinion is fortified by pragmatic evidence. It is to my belief that, evidence is a keystone in the justification of truth, because it is something solid and concrete. Significance of evidence is also magnified by our society as we develop. In major areas such as: scientific investigations, judicial examinations, historical assessments and many other field of knowledge, the value of creditable evidence are strongly advocated. While evidence is a strong factor in eliminating doubts of knowledge, different types of evidence can also affect the reliability of the truth claim which it supports. The fine line dividing valuable evidence and unreliable proof has since been drawn and debated over from the first schools of thoughts to today's broad fields of knowledge. Likewise, I will also call upon my own experience and understanding to draw my own line in the grey vicinity of this spectrum.
Before the declaration of my knowledge claims, I would like to clarify my understanding of evidence and its characteristics; which will be the foundation of this discussion. On a broad view, evidence can be identified as a fact-like assertion that proves or disproves ¯ to a certain degree ¯ a notion to be true, and trustworthy. On a closer examination, I realized, it is the evidence's degree of relevance and authenticity that establishes its value and strength. Relevance, I believe, is the relationship which the evidence has with the theory that it is trying to uphold. As two things with strong connections tend to support each other, evidence with close relationship to the hypothesis, is also able to support the truth within that assumption. Authenticity, on the other hand, is the creditability of evidence. Only when the evidence is valid, will the knowledge that it is trying to...
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