Assessing Expert Claims: Critical Thinking and the Appeal to Authority

Abstract

Much of our understanding and knowledge of the world is based on the authoritative pronouncements of experts. Both our scientific and historical understanding is grounded in this way. Think of germ theory, astronomy, plate techtonics, ancient history, dinosaurs, the origin of humans; it does not take much reflection to see that most of our understanding of the world is, in fact, grounded on information supplied and warranted by experts. Given how much of our knowledge has this basis, one would think that epistemologists would have given detailed consideration to the issue of appeal to scientific and other intellectual authority. But appeals to authority and the role that authority plays in knowledge have received little attention in modem philosophy. Indeed, philosophers generally have been opposed to such appeals since the birth of Western philosophy. Greek philosophy distinguished itself from Greek theology by rejecting appeals to authority (the wisdom of the ancients or the oracle's supply of the word of god) as the primary basis of knowledge and replacing those appeals with appeals to observation and reason as the basis of knowledge. Philosophy in many ways began with rejection of authoritative pronouncements and, when philosophy revived in the seventeenth century, the aversion to authority reappeared. By rejecting the authority of both Aristotle and the church, Descartes, Bacon, and Locke helped pave the way for modem science. These authors all rejected the appeal to any authority and, in doing so, marked the beginning of modern philosophy with its emphasis on individual confirmation of claims. As a result of this history, most contemporary introductions to epistemology do not even mention the issue of appeals to experts and authority, and there is little in contemporary epistemological literature that concerns itself with this topic.1 But one might expect critical thinking, with its concern for the practical needs of knowledge assessment, would devote considerably more attention to appeals to authority. In fact, most critical thinking texts do not even refer to appeals to authority and only a few texts give the subject significant treatment; none of these treatments is adequate, in part, perhaps because there is no epistemological theory on which to base such a treatment. Of those that do treat such appeals, many give appeals a definite secondary and necessary evil status. For example, Walton states: