Unsubstantiated

The Jolly Contrarian’s Glossary The snippy guide to financial services lingo.™ Go Premium There are five types of known. The Rumsfeld three: Known knowns: Things you do know you know; Known unknowns: Things you do know you don’t know; Unknown unknowns: Things you don’t know you don’t know; And the Jolly Contrarian three: Unknown knowns: Things you don’t know you do know. Not officially known: Things you know but the general public can’t prove. Knowable unknowns: Things you don’t know, but think you do know, for the time being, because computers. Index — Click the ᐅ to expand: Glossary Comments? Questions? Suggestions? Requests? Insults? We’d love to 📧 hear from you. Sign up for our newsletter.

Unsubstantiated
/ʌnsəbˈstanʃɪeɪtɪd/ (adj.)

A bullshit artist’s tell. Something inconvenient or embarrassing that happened, but for which there is currently no proof or credible supporting or evidence.

To be contrasted something that did not happen, which may comfortably described as “false”.

Thus, it is easy enough to disarm, by asking, “but is it untrue?”

“Substantiation” is thus a second-order property of a fact: something that, in the eyes of the outside world, falls between a “known known” and an “unknown known” in Rumsfeld’s taxonomy — call it a “not officially known”. This is a fact that, in the interior world of the person making the statement, falls squarely in the former category but, as far as she is prepared to admit to her audience, falls in the latter one.

See also

• Truth
• Rumsfeld’s taxonomy
• Forensic epistemology