Evidence: What Is Evidence, and How Do Good Reasoners Respond to It?
This pathway focuses on the central role of evidence in reasoning. Arguments can be logically flawless, but unless they are supported by good evidence, you can’t use them to reason well. Evidence consists of all the information that is currently available to you, either from your environment or stored as background knowledge. Experience is our primary source of evidence. In perception, you gain information about your immediate surroundings using your senses. And through other people’s testimony, you can also access a great deal of evidence about the broader world. The best way to use your evidence to reason well is to proportion your beliefs to your evidence. This means letting your evidence determine how confident you are in your beliefs—the stronger your evidence, the more confident you can be.