Wigmore chart¶
A graphical legal-evidence method that decomposes a disputed proposition into linked facts, inferences, corroborations, objections, and ultimate claims.
Core Idea¶
Wigmorean analysis uses standardized shapes and directed relations to map testimonial and circumstantial evidence through intermediate probanda to a final legal proposition. Explicit argument links expose relevance, inferential gaps, conflicts, source dependencies, and alternative explanations so the proof structure can be audited rather than left as prose. The abstraction is therefore identified by a declared carrier, a transformation or constraint over that carrier, and an invariant that tells an analyst whether the named structure is genuinely present.
The load-bearing residual is not the broad topic of evidence law. It is the domain-specific identity determined by every item has an evidential type and source and every directed link states how it supports, weakens, explains, or rebuts a defined proposition.
Scope of Application¶
Wigmore chart belongs to evidence law and is useful where the analyst can specify the typed evidence law carrier, defining objects and relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, boundary cases, and comparison targets, then evaluate every item has an evidential type and source and every directed link states how it supports, weakens, explains, or rebuts a defined proposition. The scope is broad within that domain but bounded by the need for every item has an evidential type and source and every directed link states how it supports, weakens, explains, or rebuts a defined proposition. Descriptive evidence-analysis method only; legal standards and admissibility vary by jurisdiction and this draft is not legal advice.
Clarity¶
The abstraction clarifies a crowded vocabulary by making every item has an evidential type and source and every directed link states how it supports, weakens, explains, or rebuts a defined proposition the center of the account. A claim should name the carrier, the governing operation or relation, the applicable assumptions, and the recognition test. A bare label is insufficient because the name Wigmore chart can be used for a formal identity, an implementation, or a neighboring result unless carrier and convention are stated.
Manages Complexity¶
Without the abstraction, an analyst must reason directly over many local details: the carrier roles, admissibility assumptions, competing conventions, derived invariants, boundary cases, and proof or validation obligations specific to Wigmore chart. Wigmore chart compresses them into the roles in the structural signature. That compression permits comparison across instances without erasing the variables that determine validity. It also exposes which details may be varied safely and which are constitutive.
Abstract Reasoning¶
- Identify the carrier. State what the elements, states, objects, or observations are: the typed evidence law carrier, defining objects and relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, boundary cases, and comparison targets. Reject examples whose alleged carrier belongs to a different problem.
- Lock the constitutive rule. Express every item has an evidential type and source and every directed link states how it supports, weakens, explains, or rebuts a defined proposition independently of one notation or implementation.
Knowledge Transfer¶
Knowledge transfers strongly among subfields of evidence law because they reuse the typed evidence law carrier, defining objects and relations, parameters, conventions, evidence, boundary cases, and comparison targets, Explicit argument links expose relevance, inferential gaps, conflicts, source dependencies, and alternative explanations so the proof structure can be audited rather than left as prose., and type the carrier, state every parameter and convention in the definition, test that every item has an evidential type and source and every directed link states how it supports, weakens, explains, or rebuts a defined proposition, compare the nearest accepted identity, and report counterexamples, uncertainty, and limiting cases.
Relationships to Other Abstractions¶
Current abstraction Wigmore chart Domain-specific
Parents (1) — outgoing typed relations
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Wigmore chart is a kind of Representation Prime
What makes it its own entry: the domain-specific identity determined by every item has an evidential type and source and every directed link states how it supports, weakens, explains, or rebuts a defined proposition.
Hierarchy path (1) — routes to 1 parentless root
- Wigmore chart → is a kind of Representation → presupposes Abstraction
Neighborhood in Abstraction Space¶
Wigmore chart sits in a crowded region of the domain-specific corpus (29th percentile for distinctiveness): several abstractions share nearly its structure, so a description that fits it tends to fit its neighbors too.
Family — Contract, Property & Legal Doctrine (44 abstractions)
Nearest neighbors
- Test (law) — 0.90
- Analogy (law) — 0.89
- Free scientific research — 0.89
- Paraphrasing of copyrighted material — 0.89
- Appeal to consequences — 0.88
Computed from structural-signature embeddings · 2026-10-25