Evidence for Rational Proof

Three Kinds of Publicly Accessible Evidence for Rational Proof

It might do well to begin with a brief summary of the three methods of assuring publicly accessible evidence: a-posteriori, a-priori, and a combination of both (contradiction of a fact). Two-thousand, four-hundred years ago, Aristotle showed that all human knowledge is based on certain first principles which are necessary for the functioning of any proof, and therefore cannot be proved (or disproved) without themselves being used. He implied that it was reasonable to believe in the validity of these first principles since they had shown themselves to be reliable in countless individual circumstances, and responsible to believe in them because their denial would require a virtual cessation to thought.^[2]

A belief may be considered reasonable and responsible if:

1) it can be affirmed by rigorous public corroboration, or

2) its denial leads to an intrinsic contradiction, or

3) its denial leads to a contradiction of publicly corroborated fact.

One of these forms of evidence is sufficient to ground the truth of a proposition. More than one would provide additional corroboration, but is not necessary. Standards for the reasonable and responsible definition of terms will be given below.

With respect to (1), rigorous corroboration means an agreed upon criterion for corroboration which is sufficient to make a preponderance of reasonable and responsible people believe that a denial of the claim is far more unreasonable and irresponsible than an affirmation of it. In the domain of sense description (e.g., Bob Spitzer is coming into his office) this corroboration could occur through agreement on sensorial apparitions from multiple persons having multiple perspectives. In science, rigorous corroboration could occur through different kinds of experimentation, repetitions of experiments, different kinds of measuring devices, etc. In social sciences, this might come from multiple approaches to a single problem or statistical analysis (using correlation coefficients, T tables, etc.).

With respect to (2), I will consider it reasonable and responsible to claim that intrinsic contradictions (e.g., “a square-circle of the same area in the same respect at the same place and time,” “an object which acts like both a proton and an electron in the same respect at the same place and time,” or “an infinite-finite in the same respect at the same place and time”) are impossible states of affairs. Therefore, all such intrinsic contradictions could not be reasonably and responsibly held to be true for real states of affairs.

Furthermore, any hypothetical state of affairs which inevitably and logically leads to an intrinsic contradiction will also be held to be an impossible state of affairs. For example, if the claim “past time is infinite” (which, on its surface, may not appear to be contradictory) can be shown to be an intrinsic and ontological contradiction, then the statement “past time is infinite” must also be considered an impossible state of affairs.