Concept · Seed idea · last reconsidered August 17, 2026
Evidence
What is offered in support of a claim, and what makes it count.
- Territories
- Knowing
Source
In ordinary epistemic use, evidence is information that raises or lowers the credibility of a claim by standing in some checkable relation to it.
Interpretation
This project will use "evidence" to mark the specific point in an argument or process where a claim is actually being checked against something outside itself, as opposed to merely restated or assumed.
Caution
Not everything that looks like evidence functions as evidence — volume and confidence are not the same thing as support. This distinction will be explored, not assumed.
Connected ideas
abstracts
formalizes
- VerificationConcept
Verification is the formal procedure by which a claim earns the status of evidence.
is questioned by
related to
- How a Field DecidesPath
Evidence is what the path is arguing about.
- KnowingTerritory
Evidence is the territory's most basic entry point.
- Normal science does not test its frameClaim
Evidence is paradigm-relative on this account.
Continue exploring
- QuestionWhat counts as evidence?A question about the standards a claim has to meet before it counts as support.
- QuestionWhat do I actually know?A question about the gap between feeling confident and having grounds for confidence.
- ConceptRepresentationA stand-in for a thing — a description, model, image, or summary — used in place of the thing itself.
- ConceptVerificationThe act of checking a claim or output against something independent of the process that produced it.