Philosophy of science

The forty-first entry is l’exigence de preuve, and its noun looks like an English word that a careful reader should leave alone. « Exigency » is rare and formal, and it means a pressing need forced by circumstances: « the exigencies of war », « in an exigency », a situation that will not wait. French l’exigence has none of that urgency. It is an everyday word for what somebody requires: les exigences du client are the customer’s requirements, une exigence de sécurité is a safety requirement, and répondre aux exigences is to meet the specification. It is also a quality in a person, and there it is praise: son exigence means her high standards, and un professeur exigeant is a demanding teacher, the kind remembered later with gratitude. None of this is an emergency. So l’exigence de preuve is not a desperate need for evidence; it is the bar a claim has to clear, and the entry’s example says that the bar rises as the claim grows bolder. Render it as « the standard of proof » or « the demand for proof », and keep « exigency » for the day the building is on fire.