Is Personal Experience Evidence?

[Saint Frankenstein]

Then would you agree that in order for personal experience to transcend into shared evidence we have to reach some agreement?

Yes. For example, a couple of fellow Hellenic Pagans on here stated that they prayed to Athena for the Conservative Party in their country to win an election. The Conservative Party won and they took it as proof that Athena answered their prayers. But I disagree that it had anything to do with Athena since I don't experience Her as a retrograde conservative.

 

[LuisDantas]

Is personal experience evidence?

For many things it is, particularly when the thing being evidence is itself very personal in nature.

 

[idav]

Is personal experience evidence?

Yea but then that would just be personal evidence. Like a private collection of photos only I have access to, but then I might start getting a little worried if I am the only one able to have said experience.

 

[sayak83]

Is personal experience evidence?

Yes, for the individual person. Not infallible evidence, but evidence.

 

[George-ananda]

Is personal experience evidence?

Yes . We would know nothing without it. It is the starting point for all knowledge.

 

[Sunstone]

Is personal experience evidence?

All experience is personal experience, is it not? After all, what would be an example of impersonal experience?

But if all experience is personal, then how can we know of evidence* except ultimately through personal experience? How can we know of a fossil (e.g. a fossil that is evidence of dinosaurs) other than ultimately through personal experience?

It would seem that all knowledge of evidence rests in the end on personal experience.

So, the question, "is personal experience evidence?", becomes the question, "is experience evidence?", the word "personal" here being redundant.

Of course, there is a sense in which all experience is evidence of something. But I don't think that's what the OP is trying to get at here. Rather, I expect the author meant something along these lines, how reliable is evidence, given that all evidence is ultimately based on experience?

That's a good question! But I'd rather not go into that at the moment because I just got up from a nap, and I'm having trouble waking up. I will say, however, that the most reliable means of inquiry humanity has yet devised are the methods of the sciences, and that those methods are ultimately based on experience -- or, as the OP puts it, "personal experience" -- but only ultimately based on that.







* I take "evidence" to mean here "anything of a logical or empirical nature offered in support of a truth-claim about a state of affairs".

 

[LukeS]

Debating this issue, its like the game rock paper scissors

(choice 1 hard science (physicalism, verificaitonism... etc), choice 2 soft science (phenomenology... etc)),

people in different "mental regimes" have different lifestyle properties and outlooks. But theres never an overall winner.

 

[Sunstone]

It is only evidence to the individual person, not to others.

Do you know of any kind of experience that is not personal.

 

[Sunstone]

So if I said I just experienced God would you consider that evidence of God?

Yes. Whether I would consider it very weak, weak, moderate, strong, or very strong evidence is another matter, one that could at least in principle depend on a number of considerations.

 

[Sunstone]

I think it might be the only type of evidence. Can you experience anything that isn't personal?

Excellent post! So far as I know, there is no such thing as "impersonal" experience. Which, in philosophical terms, would be the same as saying there is no such thing as "non-subjective" or "objective" experience.

 

[Sunstone]

That's a nice, trick question. Of course anyone can say anything. And some who say they've experienced God are psychotic and some are not. And some who are sincere might think they've experienced God when they've not. And so forth.

A better question is "how do we evaluate the claim of someone who said they've had an experience of God"?

Are you saying that a claim must meet some test for validity in order to be considered "evidence"? If so, what is that test, in your opinion? What are the grounds for asserting that a claim must meet it? And if those grounds are compelling for anyone but you, then why are they compelling?

Not looking for a debate here, just clarification.

 

[Sunstone]

For many things it is, particularly when the thing being evidence is itself very personal in nature.

Is there any such thing as an experience that is not a personal experience?

 

[Sunstone]

Yea but then that would just be personal evidence. Like a private collection of photos only I have access to, but then I might start getting a little worried if I am the only one able to have said experience.

So are you defining "personal experience" here to mean, "experience privy only to one person"?

 

[idav]

Is there any such thing as an experience that is not a personal experience?

What if a person is wearing a 24 hour camera and streaming it live. Does that make their experience more than personal. Borrowing from a movie I just saw recent The Circle.

Edit didn't see your last post Sunstone I think you caught my intent.

 

[idav]

So are you defining "personal experience" here to mean, "experience privy only to one person"?

That's definitely an interesting way of putting it. What about a group experience? We might say "what they experienced" must have been such and such. We would count two people experience as valid if they were both at the place of some shared event?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Is personal experience evidence?

Of course.

 

[Sunstone]

That's definitely an interesting way of putting it. What about a group experience? We might say "what they experienced" must have been such and such. We would count two people experience as valid if they were both at the place of some shared event?

I'm not certain what you mean by "a group experience"? Certainly, I can get together a group of my friends, we can then go together as a group to watch my neighbor sun himself in his back yard until he's acutely embarrassed by the attention (Never gets old to do that!). In that case, there is an important sense in which might say that we had a "group experience".

But it seems to me there is an equally important sense in which we cannot say we had a group experience. That's in an epistemic sense. For each of us experienced the event individually. There was no mind-melding, no shared consciousness. When we are talking epistemically, then I think we must say, "all experience is subjective, personal".

It's fine with me to discuss experience in both ways. But I think we should make sure we don't conflate those ways.

 

[LuisDantas]

Is there any such thing as an experience that is not a personal experience?

Perhaps not. But some experiences refer to subjects that are not quite so personal.

 

[Sunstone]

Perhaps not. But some experiences refer to subjects that are not quite so personal.

So there seem to be two senses or meanings of "experience" here. In one sense, there are no impersonal experiences. In another sense, there are degrees to which experiences are personal or impersonal. Is it fair to say that there two meanings of "experience" at play here?

 

[SalixIncendium]

Is personal experience evidence?

There are different types of evidence.

Personal experience is evidence, however, it is anecdotal evidence. Unless it can be measured and quantified, cannot be qualified as empirical.

ETA: I guess I should wait until I'm fully awake to start posting. @Sunstone was on point to pick out my faux pas. "Empirical" was not the correct term to make my point. The term i meant to use is "scientific," which is empirical evidence put to the scientific method. My intention was to point out that personal experience shouldn't be held as a Universal Truth, but a personal or relative truth. Apologies in advance for any confusion.