Whereas the propositions that are the objects of scientia, or knowledge, compel belief by their self-evidence or their demonstrability from self-evident premises, the propositions accepted by faith do not thus compel assent but require a voluntary act of trusting acceptance.
Most empiricists, though admitting that the senses fail to yield the certainty requisite for knowledge, hold nonetheless that it is only through observation and experimentation that justified beliefs about the world can be gained in other words, a priori reasoning from self-evident premises cannot reveal how the world is.
There was a generally accepted metatheory, namely that of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, according to which scientific demonstrations were syllogistic proofs, based on necessary and self-evident premises.
According to the Aristotelian conception, scientific knowledge scientia is certain knowledge of necessary truths, which can in principle be expressed in syllogistic form, the conclusion following from self-evident premises.
He builds several arguments on apparently self-evident premises, shoddy sourcing, emotional plugs and humor.
Americans, Europeans and Israelis involved in the peace process took this premise to be self-evident.
With thinking dead, the human mind retains only "the ability of logical reasoning whose premise is the self-evident"—a mental "capacity … which is as independent of thinking as it is of experience".
Philosophers — Descartes is usually the premier example — have sometimes thought that they could find first premises that would be totally obvious to any rational person; "self-evident" was one popular term for such premises.
The First Amendment aspires to a fuller compact among citizens, including between journalists and confidential sources, that is premised on the self-evident truth that secrecy and concentrated power are inherently corrupting.
As with any other demonstration, a demonstration in natural philosophy must have premises that are self-evident, since otherwise a regress would ensue.
