mountainman

But are you not the author of "Socrates vs Jesus who provided the initial two examples of negative evidence as described, or is that another Doug Shaver?

Are you making light of your own analysis? You used the term negative evidence (with two examples) after all is said and done. Do you stand by your use of the term in that essay?

Doug Shaver

That is my essay.

Yes, I stand by my use. That does not imply any endorsement of your interpretation, though.

mountainman

I have known about the essay for years, and studied it more than once. Only recently did I learn that you were the author. I still think its a very good essay.

My interpretation is reflected in another two hypothetical examples of what you yourself describe as negative evidence:

(3) A forged copy of Socrates birth certificate
(4) A fabricated account declaring Socrates was the code name for another Athenian.

My claim was that (3) and (4) also represent negative in contrast to positive evidence. If this claim is illogical or false or out-of-bounds I would appreciate an explanation. I am not asking you to endorse anything beyond this claim made by the provision of two further examples. These are either further examples of what you yourself would interpret as negative evidence, or they are not. I appreciate that you may wish to call them and interpret them as forgeries, and not negative evidence. But isn't this a two-way street? Maybe it is and I didn't see the one way sign.

Doug Shaver

Well, thank you for the compliment.

My name was on it from the day I posted it. But then, I have zero reputation as an authority on anything, so perhaps the name is easily ignored.

I'm having trouble believing that last statement, considering how many times you've already gotten an explanation in this thread. One of the most irritating things about you is your persistent pretense that nobody in this forum has ever responded to anything you have posted.

J-D

In the article in question the author is discussing what evidence there may be to support a particular conclusion, and uses the description 'negative evidence' to refer to evidence against that particular conclusion.

The two hypothetical examples you offer are just that, hypothetical--they don't exist (as far as I know, nor have you actually said that they do). But if they did exist, I can see no reason to think either that they would have weight as evidence in support of the conclusion in question or that they would have weight as evidence against it. They would seem to me to fit about equally well with either result. If you think that there is some reason they would have significance as evidence against the conclusion under discussion, you haven't explained it.

mountainman

A forgery that has been fabricated in order to support a particular claim by masquerading as positive evidence, once identified as a forgery, IMO cannot contribute at all to the positive evidence in support of a particular claim. The question in my mind is whether the identification of such instance of forgery damages the original claim.


Say instead of Alexander the Great were were discussing some other person who had no other evidence in support of their existence OTHER THAN a forged document of some form. The claim that this person existed appears to be damaged by this forgery. If someone knowingly fabricates support for a claim for the existence of a person, and that is all we know about this person, I see this evidence as POSSIBLY (but not necessarily) negative evidence. It suggests - raises the suspicion - that this person did not in fact exist.



Of course it is possible that the person existed, and the forger had no positive evidence but decided to fabricate some. For this reason I can see that I was in error for stating that forgery and fabrication are (necessarily) examples of negative evidence. However is it erroneous to claim that forgery and fabrication may in certain cases be examples of negative evidence in the sense that such criminal activity is perceived to damage the original claim?

I would add that I am addressing positive and negative evidence in history, and no other field, such as literature or the arts:


Finally another example. Let's suppose for the sake of the argument that the "TF" is agreed to be a pious forgery by Eusebius. There should be no question that it is therefore not positive evidence for the existence of Jesus. The question I am interested in answering is whether it can be seen as evidence that is damaging to, and thus to some degree negative, with respect to the positive claim that Jesus existed. The argument is that the existence of criminal activity supporting a claim that Jesus existed might be classed as a negative influence on the original claim.

J-D

I said that if you saw any reason to think so, you hadn't explained it. You still haven't.

mountainman

Forged (historical) evidence in respect of a claim that is openly recognised to have been fabricated by means of criminal activity cannot be classified as positive evidence in support of the claim. Such forged evidence damages the claim, and as such I see it as negative (historical) evidence in the sense that the forgeries present events which did not occur, or people who did not exist, etc.

I provided an example with the "TF". It is quite common to find in the literature a statement to the effect that "Josephus does not mention Jesus". This is a statement of negative evidence, like the dog which did not bark in the night. There is quite obviously an equivalence between the statement "Josephus does not mention Jesus" and the statement "The Jesus references in Josephus were forged".

J-D

You offered for discussion the example of a forged birth certificate. If we are trying to evaluate the hypothesis that a person matching the description on the birth certificate really existed (or exists), then the existence of the forged birth certificate appears to me to be equally consistent with either the truth or the falsity of that hypothesis; therefore I don't see how it counts either as evidence for it or as evidence against it.

For any given claim there are a variety of possible kinds of evidence for it and a variety of possible kinds of evidence against it, but there is also a vast quantity of evidence (nearly all of it) which is neither.

mountainman

I also provided an extended example with the "TF", explaining my reasons for classifying forgery as an equivalent form of negative evidence.


Would you say that the existence of a genuine birth certificate appears to you to be equally consistent with either the truth or the falsity of that hypothesis (of the existence of a person matching the description on the birth certificate )?