An Epistemology for Forensic Psychiatry

Forensic opinion becomes authoritative when its epistemic (knowledge-based) content achieves a certain quality and credence. This is the point at which information qualifies as expert testimony. It is epistemology that traditionally unites the factual state of things (truth) with a level of surety (belief) to become knowledge. The following description of an epistemology, or way of knowing, for forensic psychiatry draws on traditional and contemporary scholarship to propose an alliance of logic and probability for moving from inquiry to knowledge. Using probabilistic reasoning to accrue evidence toward a conclusion, this approach acknowledges the uncertainties of science and human behavior, the biases of observation and research, and the misinformation and doubt of a political era typified by skepticism and distrust.