What is your opinion on this quotation of Hobbes?

[Huzington]

"[Evidence is] the concomitance of a man's conception with the words that signify such conception in the act of ratiocination."

If this is true, can I not be always correct about everything?

[sodium]

Originally posted by Huzington
"[Evidence is] the concomitance of a man's conception with the words that signify such conception in the act of ratiocination."

If this is true, can I not be always correct about everything?

Can you cite where this is from? I'd like to see some context.

[sodium]

OK, I found it. It's from The Elements of Law Natural and Politic and it is Chapter 6 Section 3.

A more complete quote is as follows.

3. What truth is, hath been defined in the precedent chapter; what evidence is, I now set down. And it is the concomitance of a man's conception with the words that signify such conception in the act of ratiocination. For when a man reasoneth with his lips only, to which the mind suggesteth only the beginning, and followeth not the words of his mouth with the conceptions of his mind, out of a custom of so speaking; though he begin his ratiocination with true propositions, and proceed with perfect syllogisms, and thereby make always true conclusions; yet are not his conclusions evident to him, for want of the concomitance of conception with his words.


I think a modern paraphrase of the quote at hand would be,

Evidence is the accompaniment of a man's non-verbal idea with the words that signify the idea, during the act of reasoning

Basically, he's saying that if you're thinking about why something is true, and your saying why it is true, then that's evidence. But if you could just see that it was true, but couldn't express why, then that wouldn't be evidence. And if you had a Latin proof memorized phonetically, that wouldn't be evidence either (maybe to others, but not you).

Of course, just because you have evidence, doesn't mean you're right.

[Keith Russell]

I disagree.

Thoughts, concepts, and the words that describe them are claims--

--not evidence.

'Evidence' must be independently verifiable; indpendent of claim, belief, etc.

K

[sophie]

Russell : 'Evidence' must be independently verifiable; indpendent of claim, belief, etc.

You make me laugh. In the end how is this all tied together? ha ha. Using someone else`s brain! right.

[Keith Russell]

sophie, glad you got a laugh out of it.

Now, what do you mean by 'tied together'?

(And, while we're on the subject, why talk about someone else's brain, or mind...?)

K

[Huzington]

I forgot about this post.

It is well known that Hobbes was influenced by geometry. I think he thought it applicable to everything. I think Hobbes meant that evidence is rather like geometry: you analyse the first principles, i.e. your unverifiable beliefs, and make deductions. How deductions are got out of first principles is the evidence.

[sophie]

Russell : 'Evidence' must be independently verifiable; indpendent of claim, belief, etc.When you say this you seem to fail to realise the independence actually has dependent aspects.

On this we must rely on the idea of the interdependence of the mind which uses the base concept of the brain. Now concomitance is listed in the dictionary to mean : a conjunction that is regular and is marked by correlative variation of accompanying elements. Verily we can associate accompanying elements to indicate some independent ideas and perhaps some which are not independent but are rather inferred from the antecedent.

Because of the interdependence of the mind, no matter how much independent verification is performed, it all returns to the mind to be processed for truth.

So evidence which can be provided in an ancient and a modern sense must be rationally sound when expressed through the language of words. The evidence is given within the statement and may not be necessarily explicit because it was thought out and presented in expressive form.

[Keith Russell]

sophie, I disagree.

Once can string words together in ways which (as often as not) have nothing to do with the evidence of 'reality' provided by the senses.

I do not believe that language is, in any significant sense, the ultimate (final) arbiter of truth.

K

[sophie]

Russell : I do not believe that language is, in any significant sense, the ultimate (final) arbiter of truth. Of course not, but words are used to express the truth.

[Keith Russell]

sophie, words can be used to describe the truth, but they can just as easily be used to lie, or to utter meaningless gibberish.

The only way to know that words describe truth, is to compare them to reality...

K