The need for developing Philosophic Forensic Science

Political Philosophy Law
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On the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Policy page is the Forensic Science section.

In the ‘About’ section, it reads:

Forensic science is a critical element of the criminal justice system.  Forensic scientists examine and analyze evidence from crime scenes and elsewhere to develop objective findings that can assist in the investigation and prosecution of perpetrators of crime or absolve an innocent person from suspicion.

In Ayn Rand’s essay, Philosophical Detection, a passage reads:

A philosophical detective must seek to determine the truth or falsehood of an abstract system and thus discover whether he is dealing with a great achievement or an intellectual crime.

 

The Forensic Files provide brief insightful looks into the world of solving murder cases. In the American legal system, the oft-touted claim is a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. The episodes introduce the viewer to some of the behind-the-scenes looks at the processes of validating evidence.

If the desire is to provide an equivalent in philosophical matters, the methods need to be impeccable as possible, be they for a great achievement or an intellectual crime.

 

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Arguably, logic is at the root of the Department of Justice’s approach to the field or science of forensics. 

Logic, as the art of non-contradictory identification, has been developed around the capacity to separate the contradictory from the non-contradictory. Harkening back to the previous post, an intellectual achievement would be an identification that is non-contradictory. An intellectual crime woud be passing off a contradictory identification as non-contradictory.

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Philosophy deals in abstraction. Logic, itself, is an abstraction. 

Forensics draws some of its evidence from particulars such as a finger print, a shoe print, a pollen spore, etc., ultimately connecting a suspect to a victim—where the sum of the evidence adds up to only one conclusion.

If the same level of certitude is desired philosophically, arm chair philosophizing might present a bit of a challenge.

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Most of the bullshit that is intellectual crime is itself arm chair philosophizing, why should it not be able to be refuted from an arm chair?  One can refer to reality from an arm chair as easily as evade it.

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