Experience, testimony and expertise in belief: VCE Philosophy
“Viewpoints and arguments on the roles of experience, testimony and expertise in the formation of and justification for belief”
Peirce argues that of four methods of settling belief (tenacity, authority, the a priori method and science), only science is self-correcting because it tests belief against something external to our opinions, namely shared experience of reality. Elizabeth Fricker notes that we cannot avoid relying on others' testimony, since no one can check everything personally, but argues that hearers should still stay alert to a speaker's trustworthiness. Experts matter because they know more than we do, but we need grounds to identify them. A strong answer shows each source is necessary and fallible, and explains how they check one another.
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What this dot point is asking
Where should our beliefs come from and what makes them justified: our own experience, what others tell us, or the judgement of experts? You must explain what the set texts say about each source and weigh their strengths and weaknesses.
Experience
Experience, including perception and personal observation, is our most direct source. Peirce prizes it indirectly: his scientific method rests on the idea that there are real things whose characters are independent of what we think, and that investigation using experience can lead different people to the same conclusion. Limits of experience: it is partial, since we see little of the world; it is fallible, as illusions and biases show; and it needs interpretation, which depends on background beliefs.
Peirce's four methods
In 'The Fixation of Belief', Peirce describes inquiry as moving from the irritation of doubt to the settled state of belief. He compares four ways to settle belief:
- Tenacity: cling to what you already believe and avoid contrary evidence. It fails because other people's differing opinions will eventually trouble you, since we are social.
- Authority: let an institution fix beliefs, with enforcement. It can produce stability but not for everyone, and some will see that other societies believe differently.
- A priori method: adopt what seems agreeable to reason. This makes belief a matter of taste or fashion, and it changes with intellectual trends.
- Scientific method: fix belief by something external, which is not affected by our opinions, so that anyone who investigates properly arrives at the same result.
His reasoning is that only the fourth method has a standard to correct mistakes against. It provides the idea of a belief being justified by how it was fixed.
Testimony
Testimony is accepting something because someone said so. Most of what we believe (history, geography, medical facts, our date of birth) rests on it. Elizabeth Fricker, in the extracts, begins from the need for sharing: individuals have limited time and competence, so a community must share information. The question she explores is how this fits with epistemic autonomy, the ideal of thinking for oneself. Her response, in outline, is that relying on testimony is rational but not blind: a hearer should be sensitive to evidence about whether a speaker is trustworthy and competent on the topic, and responsible for their own beliefs. Details of her position are best taken from your set extract.
Expertise
Experts are people with superior knowledge in a domain. We often should defer to them. But deference raises problems:
- How do non-experts identify genuine experts?
- Experts can be wrong, disagree with each other, or have conflicts of interest.
- Expertise is domain-specific, and an expert in one area may not be in another.
Signs that help: credentials, track record, agreement among independent experts, openness to scrutiny, absence of conflicts of interest.
Mill: testing opinion
Mill's extract argues that even an opinion we have good reason to accept should be exposed to challenge, otherwise it becomes dead dogma. This suggests that no source, including experts and authorities, should be exempt from questioning, and that testimony and experience are tested by open discussion.
Evaluation
- Relying on experience alone leaves us with very little knowledge.
- Relying on testimony alone can create dependence and enables manipulation.
- Relying on expertise alone depends on correctly identifying experts.
- Therefore good belief formation combines sources and checks them, which is the thrust of Peirce's emphasis on self-correction.
Question: Should we defer to experts about matters on which we have our own experience?
Case: a patient with a chronic condition who has years of lived experience, and a doctor with training.
Analysis: the doctor has broad testimony-based knowledge from research, the patient has first-hand knowledge of their own symptoms. Each has a type of expertise.
Judgement: neither should simply override the other. A rational patient should weigh the doctor's expertise heavily on general matters while insisting that their own experience is evidence the doctor should account for. This illustrates that sources complement each other, and that disregarding experience as 'merely anecdotal' can be a failure of justice to the knower (see epistemic injustice).
Practice questions
Explain why Peirce thinks the method of tenacity fails.
Model answer: Tenacity requires ignoring conflicting views, but because we live among others who hold different beliefs, the social impulse will make us doubt our own, so the method cannot keep belief stable.
Give one reason why it is rational to rely on testimony.
Model answer: No individual can verify more than a tiny fraction of what they need to know, so refusing testimony would leave us with almost no beliefs. Provided we are alert to the trustworthiness of the speaker, relying on others extends our knowledge.
Avoid saying 'Peirce says use authority'. He lists authority as one of four methods and criticises it. His preferred method is the scientific one.