| In China, there is little serious discussion on the issue about the logical basis of the fact-finding course based on evidence. There are practical shortcomings in the traditional philosophy and logical theory of evidence and proof. That is, the facts of the case can never be obtained by precise logical reasoning, and the deductive and inductive reasoning of formal logic can not explain the fact-finding course by evidence reasonably. In fact, evidence can not be used to restore the truth, but can only provide support for certain hypotheses. In the judiciary, the method used to determine the facts is actually the so-called speculation in our daily language and psychology, whose logical form is abduction. As the third type of logical reasoning, this defeasible and contextual reasoning fits the logical form of the fact-finding proceedings.Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of American pragmatism, was the first philosopher to give abduction a logical form. Abduction is a reasoning process invoked to explain a puzzling observation. Unlike deduction or induction, it is a non-monotonic reasoning. This theory well integrates the sharp distinction between the so-called “discovery” and “justification”.The notion of abduction is a powerful tool for the analysis of legal evidence. Although not all the defeasible argumentations are abduction, the importance of abduction in legal evidence is not hard to understand. The theory of abduction will impact the traditional theory of evidence law. From this perspective, we will form a new understanding about a lot of concepts and issues such as the standard of proof and the burden of proof, the direct evidence and the circumstantial evidence, the primary-face proof and the fishing expedition, the presumption of fact and the rule of thumb. Only with the awareness and understanding of the nature of fact-finding as abduction, and with a clear recognition of its defects, can we argue and compare various hypotheses carefully and test them with comprehensive information to avoid mistakes. |
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