Abstract
Among social epistemologists, having a certain proportion of reliably formed beliefs in a subject matter is widely regarded as a necessary condition for cognitive expertise. This condition is motivated by the idea that expert testimony puts subjects in a better position than non-expert testimony to obtain knowledge about a subject matter. I offer three arguments showing that veritism is an inadequate account of expert authority because the reliable access condition renders expertise incapable of performing its social role. I then develop an alternative explanation of expert authority that I call the epistemic facility account, arguing that having a certain type of competence in a subject matter or domain of subject matters is sufficient for explaining expert authority while avoiding the problems with veritistic accounts.
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Notes
10 News, WTSP.com, “Casey Anthony Trial: Dr. G. testifies, says ‘No child should have duct tape on its face,’” 10 Jun 2011, www.wtsp.com/news/article/196390/0/Casey-Anthony-Trial-Dr-G-testifies-says-No-child-should-have-duct-tape-on-its-face. Accessed 4/17/2014.
For example, Elga (2011) defines an expert as an epistemic advisor to whom it is rational to give complete deference with respect to both information and judgment, and he defines a guru as an epistemic advisor to whom it is rational to give conditionally complete deference, that is, complete deference to “her opinions conditional on all of my extra information” (159). He then argues that, “only in highly idealized circumstances is it appropriate to treat someone as an expert or a guru, and so to completely defer to that person’s judgment” (163). Elga then treats all non-ideal instances of expert testimony as varying degrees of peer disagreement.
For example, Mizrahi (2013) argues that appeals to expert testimony are weak given empirical evidence that experts are only slightly more accurate than chance and significantly less accurate than decision procedures.
To be sure, someone may be an expert about a types of surgery even if his hands are too shaky to perform the duties of a surgeon.
Quast (2016) expresses reservations over our ability to characterize cognitive expertise independently of performative expertise. He argues that an adequate explication of expertise includes both cognitive and performative elements. Alternatively, Dreyfus (2001) argues that the phenomena we identify as propositional “know-that” simply reduces to the performative “know-how.” But regardless of whether all cognitive expertise has an essentially performative component or cognitive expertise reduces (in some sense) to performative expertise, there remains a difference between someone who can perform a certain task and someone who can both perform that task and speak authoritatively about it. Further, claims about a subject matter are subject to different evaluative standards than behaviors with respect to discipline. Beliefs can be true or false and epistemically justified or unjustified. Behaviors can occur or not, be competent or incompetent, be morally justified or unjustified. So, regardless of whether these are distinct types of expertise, I am interested exclusively in the dimension of expertise that constitutes epistemic authority. [For another critique of Dreyfus along these lines, see Selinger and Crease (2006)].
Consider Marisa Tomei’s character, Mona Lisa Vito, in the film My Cousin Vinny (20th Century Fox, 1992). In the climax, Vito is challenged as to her expertise about automobiles, and all she can offer in support is that she comes from a family of mechanics and has spent some time working as a mechanic. As with our woodworker case, this does not obviously count in favor of expertise. Nevertheless, she quickly displays indicators (though there is no producible record of past displays) that she is, indeed, an expert about automobiles.
Abagnale’s story is documented in the book (Frank and Redding 1980) and film (DreamWorks, 2002) Catch Me If You Can. Abagnale is now the CEO of Abagnale & Consultants security consultant firm, which trains corporations and government agencies—including the FBI—on how to detect fraud. (http://www.abagnale.com/index2.asp).
We say this regularly in logic and philosophy classes. In order to understand logic and philosophy, you must do logic and philosophy. The same, I imagine, is true of scientists. In order to be a scientist, one must learn to perform as scientists do by performing experiments, interpreting findings, etc. Later, I will call this the successful discharge of epistemic activities.
Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out.
Some subject matters or domains of subject matter may not support experts at all. For instance, David Coady argues that, although there are experts “on a range of moral issues” and about particular sciences, because morality and science are so “vast and amorphous,” it is not plausible to believe there are experts about morality or experts about science (Coady op. cit., 51–55).
Note that the ability to apply understanding is distinct from actually applying that understanding. As I noted earlier, a subject may be an expert even if she has never displayed indicators of her expertise, but the ability to apply expertise is not as obviously negotiable. If Marisa Tomei’s character (fn. 7) could not perform as an expert, we would not only have a reason to doubt whether she is an expert, but a reason to believe she is not an expert.
It is noteworthy that some epistemologists now deny that epistemic regress ad infinitum is an obstacle to justification. For example, Klein (2005) and Aiken (2009) defend what is known as “infinitism” about justification, according to which an infinite series of non-circular, successive reasons can plausibly justify a subject with respect to a belief. Nevertheless, infinitism remains an internalist view, and thereby cannot help test the reliability of a subject’s access to truth.
Thanks to C. L. Sosis for the phrase “hollow topics”.
The Parapsychological Association, http://www.parapsych.org/section/17/journal_of_parapsychology.aspx. Accessed 4/17/2014.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science, Affiliates, http://www.aaas.org/page/aaas-affiliates#p. Accessed 4/17/2014.
It should be noted that some who might properly be regarded as “parapsychologists” study uncontroversially scientific questions about the human experience of PSI rather than actual PSI phenomena, such as the mechanisms that underwrite such experiences. For the purposes of my discussion, I will use “parapsychologist” to refer only to those who presume or claim to demonstrate the actual existence of psi. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for this clarification.
This may not be true of every parapsychological researcher. For instance, the Cambridge-published journal New Testament Studies is not, in virtue of publishing research on the New Testament, biased with respect to the truth of propositions about events in the New Testament, though presumably some events documented in the New Testament are regarded, uncontroversially, as true by the editorial board, e.g., the existence of Pontius Pilate, the role of the Jewish Sanhedrin in political disputes with Roman governors.
Cf. Cohen (1985: 24–25).
Cf. Newton (1952: 19).
Ibid., pp. 8–9.
“…[F]or Newton and some of his most illustrious contemporaries, including Robert Boyle (1627–1691) and John Locke (1632–1704), alchemy was a very serious part of chemistry that held great promise for understanding the nature of matter.” (Davis 2009: 118–119). This view was not, however, held by all putative experts. Less than a generation prior, Descartes associated alchemy with astrology and magic, and regarded them all as “false sciences” (Descartes 1988: 24).
This case is relayed by Hempel (1966), ch.
Hallett (2005).
Someone might object that this argument presupposes an instrumentalist or skeptical view of scientific progress. If one is a strong realist, it is argued, this pessimism is unwarranted, and therefore, the objection loses its force. Many of Newton’s beliefs turn out to be true in practice and under certain restricted conditions. If one is a strong enough realist, I think this is right. But I think the advent of the historical perspective on science casts serious doubts on strong realism. This need not leave us with anti-realism or instrumentalism. One may continue to regard science as truth-oriented even if, given our cognitive and linguistic limitations, we are unable to obtain it reliably. It is important to note that even if many of Newton’s conclusions were true, his arguments for them (assuming the Euclidean structure of space, and space’s ontological distinctness from time) are not cogent. Thanks to Markus Seidel for this objection.
I say “more likely” here only to make room for the possibility that the expert does not meet the other conditions necessary for justified belief. Even an expert can form beliefs carelessly.
Note that “success” here should not be read in veritistic terms. What constitutes success will look different in different subject matters and social contexts, but it is still the case that no one has cognitive access to mind-independent truths.
Ron Numbers wrote a 600-page history of creationism called The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006). Thomas Woodward wrote a history of the intelligent design movement called Doubts about Darwin (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2004).
Coady (2012: 29–30).
Thanks to Harry Collins for the phrase “unanticipated questions.”.
For Coady, whether one is an expert depends on her position in her epistemic community. Absent an epistemic community Coady could not even invoke a hypothetical community here, explaining that, whether S is an expert depends on which hypothetical community we choose.
It is important to note that age is not an in-principle barrier to expertise. Someone gifted like Saul Kripke to solve Gödel’s incompleteness theorem at eighteen might rightly count as an expert despite a lower degree of experience and formal education than others.
Cf. Crasnow et al. (2015).
Someone might ask why (RA) could not perform this constitutive function, since it seems possible for veritism to be constitutive of other epistemic concepts for which we have no cognitive access, such as knowledge. The problem is that, unlike knowledge, expertise can only function qua expertise if its conditions are accessible. This is because we ask whether someone is an expert in order to determine whether to trust her testimony. (RA), and therefore, veritism, make the conditions for expertise in-principle unavailable, and thereby undermine its ability to perform its social role.
Foley (2001: 118–19), citations removed.
Schmitt (2006: 193).
BonJour (1985: 8).
Chisholm (1982: 3).
One might worry that my contentions here lead straight to Stichian pragmatism (cf. Stich (1990)). I don’t think my views commit me to epistemic pragmatism, and I would certainly resist the moniker if pressed. Hilary Kornblith (2002: 150–157) offers a response to Stich that’s worth paraphrasing. Stich claims that our cognitive systems more likely evolved to render us apt for pursuing our values than for pursuing truth. Very roughly, Kornblith wants to know whether our cognitive faculties actually render us apt for pursuing our values or not. If they really are values-apt, then they are truth-apt in a non-trivial sense. If they are not truth-apt even in this minimal sense, then the best our faculties do is lead us to believe our values are met, leaving whether they are met to the vicissitudes of chance. Even pragmatism, it would seem, must have a non-trivial degree of truth-aptness. I think there is something right about Kornblith’s response, however, locating just where the truth lies (in our perceptions, in the obtaining of our values, in the obtaining of true beliefs), and whether that truth is sufficient for epistemic justification is a question for theoretical epistemology; in the domain of applied epistemology, my argument shows that we may suspend the truth question.
The Talk Origins Archive, “McLean vs. Arkansas Board of Education,” http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/mclean-v-arkansas.html. Accessed 4/28/2014.
McLean vs. Arkansas Documentation Project, http://www.antievolution.org/projects/mclean/new_site/index.htm. Accessed 4/28/2014.
There are, to be sure, cases where we currently cannot determine whether one is preferable to another. Consider the impasse between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics; neither is sufficient for explaining all physical phenomena and each are sufficient for explaining phenomena the other cannot. In this case, one topic must be hollow, but there is no widespread agreement for how to make sense of that with either.
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Watson, J.C. The Shoulders of Giants: A Case for Non-veritism about Expert Authority. Topoi 37, 39–53 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9421-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9421-0