However little that various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences might seem to have in common, they share certain interests in methodological problems relating to evidence, inference and interpretation. By pursuing these shared interests across divergent topics and fields, the contributors to this work aim to advance our understanding of how such truth-seeking, proof-finding methods work, and of what it means to prove something in a range of contexts. The volume considers intriguing questions from different realms - assyriology, theatre iconography, musicology, criminology, the history of ideas, and colonial history - as it reveals how particular concepts, lines of questioning, and techniques of reasoning and analysis developed in one context can be fruitfully applied in others. Among the questions that bring the contributors together are: Was Edith Thompson, famously convicted in 1923 of murdering her husband, a victim of a serious miscarriage of justice? Did cuneiform languages really die out in the second or third century BC? Was Franz Schubert responsible for any of the guitar arrangements for some of his ""lieder""? In these cases and others, the contributors' work demonstrates that, notwithstanding differences in the objectives of their inquiries, the nature and extent of their source material, the culture of their respective disciplines, and their national backgrounds, all these projects involve drawing inferences from evidence to test hypotheses and justify conclusions, and that the logic of this kind of inquiry is governed by the same principles.
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A discussion of methodological problems relating to evidence, inference and interpretation. By pursuing these interests across divergent topics and fields, this work explores how such truth-seeking, proof-finding methods work, and of what it means to prove something in a range of contexts.
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Evidence and Inferences about Past Events - An Overview of Six Case Studies, David A. Schum; Reconstructing the Truth about Edith Thompson - The Shakespearean and the Jurist, William Twining and Rene Weis; The Last Wedge, M.J. Geller; Wigmore Meets ""The Last Wedge"", Terence Anderson; Wigmorean Analysis and the Survival of Cuneiform, M.J. Geller; The Mountebank - A Case Study in Early Modern Theatre Iconography, Margaret Katrizky; Schubert ""Lieder"" and the Guitar - Musicological Evidence and Inference, Thomas F. Heck; Historical Evidence and Dutch Colonial Labour Relations, V.J.H. Houben; Evidence and Inference in the History of Political Thought - The Case of Locke's Theory of Property, Iain Hampsher-Monk.
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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9780810117563
Publisert
2003-06-30
Utgiver
Vendor
Northwestern University Press
Vekt
467 gr
Aldersnivå
UU, UP, P, 05, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
424

Biographical note

WILLIAM TWINING is Research Professor of Law at University College London. Twining's Rethinking Evidence (1994) and Analysis of Evidence (1999) were copublished by Northwestern University Press. IAIN HAMPSHER-MONK is head of the department of politics at the University of Exeter. He is the founder and editor of the journal History of Political Thought and the author of A History of Modern Political Thought (Blackwell, 1994).