Reinhard, Franziska (2025) Direct and Circumstantial Traces. In: UNSPECIFIED.
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Abstract
Existing characterizations of ‘trace’ in the philosophy of the historical sciences agree that traces need to be downstream of the long-past event under investigation. I argue that this misses an important type of trace used in historical reconstructions. Existing characterizations of traces focus on what I propose to call direct traces. What I call circumstantial traces (i) share a common cause with a past event and (ii) allow an inference to said event via an intermediate step. I illustrate the significance of checking the alignment between direct and circumstantial traces in historical reconstructions through a case study from (micro-)palaeontology.
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| Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (UNSPECIFIED) | ||||||
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| Keywords: | historical sciences, paleontology, evidential reasoning, traces, early life, stromatolites | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Earth Sciences General Issues > Evidence Specific Sciences > Historical Sciences |
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| Depositing User: | Franziska Reinhard | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 22 May 2025 12:50 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 22 May 2025 12:50 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 25425 | ||||||
| Subjects: | Specific Sciences > Earth Sciences General Issues > Evidence Specific Sciences > Historical Sciences |
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| Date: | 2025 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/25425 |
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