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filtherton: setting up standards of evidence amounts to setting up other proofs. the same problem of axioms will recur.
it doesn't go away: this is a problem with the form.
in the end, the rules and assumptions behind proofs as a form are either taken for granted (and so frequently unexamined and so frequently more problematic than they appear to be: like identity) or are attempts to write-to-ground of assumptions shared by a belief community. so there is nothing about the form that will prevent bad assumptions from being written into their structure. and once they are in, they become part of the apparatus that moves across the steps.
it is a bit strange that folk are fixated on proofs as a form that has no particular problems. the result of a proof is true if it doesn't violate the rules. the axioms arent demonstrable from within the proof that assumes them. no believer is going to set about developing a proof of gods existence before they start a demonstration---closest you get is the ontological proof, and that's a tautology that says the question "does god exist?" is tautological.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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