Evidence and Inference in History and Law: Interdisciplinary Dialogues - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0810117568 ISBN 13: 9780810117563

Publisher: Northwestern University Press, 2002

Synopsis

Northwestern University Press co-published William Twining's Rethinking Evidence in 1994 and Analysis of Evidence in 1998. This new volume, Evidence and Inference, is an interdisciplinary volume exploring the application of techniques of evidence and inference across a variety of fields.

Coedited by Twining, one of the world's outstanding evidence scholars, and Iain Hampsher-Monk, a leading political theorist, the volume considers intriguing questions from Assyriology, theater 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. Did cuneiform languages really die out in the second or third century B.C.? Was Schubert responsible for any of the guitar arrangements for some of his lieder? In these cases and others, the authors' work demonstrates that, regardless of the field or the problem, all such projects involve drawing inferences from evidence, and that the logic of this kind of inquiry is always governed by the same principles.

About this title

About the Author

i.w. hampsher-monk@ex.ac.uk Politics Dept/University of Exeter/EX4 4RJ/ UK / fax 44 1392 263305/ tel 44 1392 263172

From the Back Cover

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 book 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. Coedited by William Twining, one of the world's outstanding evidence scholars, and Iain Hampsher-Monk, a leading political theorist, 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: 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 B.C.? Was Franz Schubert responsible for any of the guitar arrangements for some of his lieder? In these cases and others, the authors' 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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Northwestern University Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0810117568
• ISBN 13: 9780810117563
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368
• Editor: Twining William, Hampsher-Monk Ian