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A Dialogue Between Law and HistoryThe Generation of Probable Facts from Testimonies in Jurisprudence and Historiography

A Dialogue Between Law and History: The Generation of Probable Facts from Testimonies in... [Historiography and jurisprudence are founded on the epistemology of testimony. They generate knowledge mostly, though not exclusively, from testimonies. Reliance on the epistemology of testimony distinguishes jurisprudence and historiography from the empirical sciences that infer knowledge from sense data, and from mathematics and logic that infer a priori knowledge from reason. This article models how independent multiple coherent testimonies generate probable knowledge in historiography and jurisprudence. Individual testimonies can at most transmit their own reliabilities. Multiple independent testimonies, even unreliable but coherent and independent testimonies, can generate knowledge with higher probability than any of the testimonies. For this reason, historians, detectives, and triers search for coherent, yet independent, testimonies. I discuss in particular the concepts of coherence between testimonies, the independence of testimonies, and their reliability. I argue that all these concepts are best understood as aspects of information flows from events to testimonies. I present a new modular model of the inference of knowledge from testimonies in three stages that fits the best practices of institutionally embedded expert historians, jurists, and detectives, who infer knowledge from multiple testimonies.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

A Dialogue Between Law and HistoryThe Generation of Probable Facts from Testimonies in Jurisprudence and Historiography

Editors: Zhang, Baosheng; Man, Thomas Yunlong; Lin, Jing

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References (36)

Publisher
Springer Singapore
Copyright
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021
ISBN
978-981-15-9684-1
Pages
81 –96
DOI
10.1007/978-981-15-9685-8_5
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Historiography and jurisprudence are founded on the epistemology of testimony. They generate knowledge mostly, though not exclusively, from testimonies. Reliance on the epistemology of testimony distinguishes jurisprudence and historiography from the empirical sciences that infer knowledge from sense data, and from mathematics and logic that infer a priori knowledge from reason. This article models how independent multiple coherent testimonies generate probable knowledge in historiography and jurisprudence. Individual testimonies can at most transmit their own reliabilities. Multiple independent testimonies, even unreliable but coherent and independent testimonies, can generate knowledge with higher probability than any of the testimonies. For this reason, historians, detectives, and triers search for coherent, yet independent, testimonies. I discuss in particular the concepts of coherence between testimonies, the independence of testimonies, and their reliability. I argue that all these concepts are best understood as aspects of information flows from events to testimonies. I present a new modular model of the inference of knowledge from testimonies in three stages that fits the best practices of institutionally embedded expert historians, jurists, and detectives, who infer knowledge from multiple testimonies.]

Published: Dec 15, 2020

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