Do Theories Need Evidence?

Do Theories Need Evidence?

 

It was Shestov that pointed out that the habit of providing evidence as a way of validating theories was arbitrary. Yet in this modern day it seems prevalent, and this worries me. To quote one other philosopher before delving into this, “There are no facts. Only opinions.” Could one not presume therefore, entering the inquiry at this junction, that the people who provide the most evidence for something are in fact simply the most opinionated?

Hume’s Skepticism indicates that if something can be conceived of, it is a possibility. This makes sense if one regards the process of inquiry and consideration itself an experience. Which it seems inadvertently to be. The line between what is imagined and what is seen truly seems to be absent as a guiding distinction in our experience.

Taking a radically empirical view, therefore, one might conclude that everything that IS is an experience. The contemplation of a theory is already a Fact because it is a raw phenomenon of the mind. If the mind can conceive of itself in the form of a theory, that theory, as a product of the mind, is practically raw data.

To have a preference only for those theories which have evidence supporting them creates three problems. In the first place, it is possible to conceive of (and therefore possible as such) that there could be a theory that would have no evidence for it until it was considered thoroughly and “invited” as a possibility. The second problem is that theories arising spontaneously may in fact arise from evidence and experience, but this would be unconscious because the capacity to express such observations verbally would be absent (or perhaps for some other reason). The third problem: It is a strong prejudice in favor of those experiences which occur “in bulk”. That is to say: The relationship between a theory and its evidence could be likened to a relationship between a set of unassembled furniture and a manual. Some furniture may come with an assembly guide that helps one to put it together. Yet from time to time one might find that no such manual exists; one simply has to assemble it alone.

One might call a theory an Experience. Therefore, evidence would refer to those experiences which appear to the subject to corroborate the validity of the central Experience of focus. This “auxiliary experiences” might include intersubjective corroboration, memories of similar experiences, et cetera. Yet it would be philosophically suicidal to simply rule out those unique experiences and intimations that seem so peculiar that one feels in their presence an ineffable solitude and astonishment.

To place restrictions on what the mind can CONCEIVE is essentially to dictate rules restricting “thought-crime”. It is a Fascistic strategy, nothing short of it, and probably nothing more. To vilify those who express their intimations is to offend Free Speech. Sure: Dangerous ideas have arisen in the course of history and functioned as ideologies. Ought one to take the irresponsibilities of a Mass (and those people following a Mass) to restrict the roving individual mind, especially if to do the opposite and to condone the roving individual mind is to move AWAY from the Mass and into a mode of human life which embraces those vague corners of the psyche that Huxley describes in Heaven and Hell?

It seems inconceivable that anyone with intellectual curiosity and an interest in human freedom would think to do that. The only plaint may be that such considerations are “impractical”, “subversive”, and a “waste of time”. Yet if it is possible to consider that a new way of thinking could, if it were true, subvert the validity of all “evidence against it”, then what remains to stop this inquiry seems simply to be a matter of personal preference. Some people will be content with the status quo and unquestioningly buy into whatever way of thinking produces the most “practical results” and “tangible evidence”. Yet others will have the temerity and tenacity to go to the very core of the human psyche and to explore possibilities which did not even occur to consciousness for years. These thoughts would appear subversive because they do not seem to “belong” to the philosophical trends of the time. Yet like all variation, they have importance. Even things in the fossil record that seem to have died out of evolution still captivate our imaginations and cannot be said to be entirely worthless.

 

Dm.A.A.