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Don’t necessarily trust the experts

My goodness some people are literal-minded. Judging from some of the commentary (here and elsewhere) on my post about the PhilPapers survey, some people really think I was making a blanket assertion to the effect that one should always trust the experts. Well, no, of course I wasn’t saying that. I thought it was obvious that what I was really saying is that if a certain kind of atheist is going to play the stupid “A says this, but THE EXPERTS say otherwise!” game, he ought to do so consistently.

Does expertise count for something? Of course it does. The argument from authority is, when the authority in question is a genuine authority, a serious argument. But it is hardly conclusive. Experts can be wrong. The conventional wisdom in an entire field of study can be wrong. I’m with Aquinas: The argument from (genuine) authority is a serious argument, but when the authority in question is a human being or group of human beings it is nevertheless the weakest of all arguments (ST I.1.8).

Comments (24)

"The argument from authority is, when the authority in question is a genuine authority, a serious argument."

Are you being serious? ;-) How do we know that an authority is genuine? What constitutes an authority? Being published in the Journal of Philosophy or Nature? Lots of Nobel Prizes have been awarded to people for articles published in secondary journals and Nature has published some really lousy articles. Having degrees after one's name? Lots of early scientists didn't have degrees in their field. Today's emphasis on degrees may be a sociological anomaly.

"I’m with Aquinas: The argument from (genuine) authority is a serious argument, but when the authority in question is a human being or group of human beings it is nevertheless the weakest of all arguments (ST I.1.8)."

So, are you referencing Aquinas as an authority, or merely as if Aquinas were just some guy off the street? If the latter, what does his doxa matter?

I love this game.

The NY Times keeps five or six people chained to a wall in a basement dungeon, the same one Maureen Dowd is usually stashed in.

Despite their unhappy condition they are the "experts" cited with a monomaniacal consistency on all matters conceivable to the mind of Man, and some conceivable only to the NY Times.

Their screams may be heard at night by passers by on the street as they pause to genuflect outside this hallowed monument to wisdom, sophistication, and tolerance towards those less endowed with genius.

They suffer but serve a cause greater than themselves, and only a little less important than that of Editor-in-Chief and senior wooden Indian Bill Keller, who with a tune up and lube job , can always be counted on to, right, "stand by our story".

Such is the Acropolis of modern culture, and we tiny creatures scurrying around the feet of the mighty.

Edward,

It was a really interesting post. It raises lots of questions that I don't know how to answer that I thought you might be able to.

You wrote:

But of course there is another obvious way to interpret the results in question [He's speaking of the results of the Phil Papers survey that revealed that the majority of professional philosophers lean towards or accept atheism whereas the majority of professional philosophers who specialize in philosophy of religion lean towards or accept theism] – as clear evidence that those philosophers who have actually studied the arguments for theism in depth, and thus understand them the best – as philosophers of religion and medieval specialists naturally would – are far more likely to conclude that theism is true, or at least to be less certain that atheism is true, than other philosophers are. And if that’s what the experts on the subject think, then what the “all respondents” data shows is that most academic philosophers have a degree of confidence in atheism that is rationally unwarranted.

You seem to identify specialists with experts and those who don't specialize as those who lack expertise. Let's do that. One thing that seems to matter is the size of the knowledge gap that separates experts from non-experts. Is the size of the gap between expert and non-expert in philosophy (who has a PhD in philosophy and probably knows a fair bit of epistemology, metaphysics, applied ethics, and ethical theory) comparable to the size of the knowledge gap between experts who work in climatology and those non-experts that disagree with their claims? My guess is that there is going to be a significant difference in the size of the knowledge gaps, but I think that that's perfectly consistent with saying that the non-experts in all these fields ought to be less confident that they have it right and the experts don't.

Another complicating factor is self-selection. Are atheists less inclined to go into philosophy of religion than theists? If so, does that affect the argument from authority? I think that it's not uncommon for philosophers to think that philosophers take a low view of philosophy of religion when compared to other specialties and so it makes some sense to specialize in something else given intense pressure for positions when the few schools that seem to prize a specialization in philosophy of religion also often have a preference for professors that support the religious missions of the institution. (Great example of this: An ad posted on 12.15 to the JFP reads as follows, "293., *294. THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, WASHINGTON, DC. Open Position for a Priest Professor. Rank open, tenure-track, beginning fall 2010. 5 courses/year (3-2/semester), undergraduate and graduate. Dissertation and thesis supervision. Usual committee work. AOS: open. The School seeks a Roman Catholic priest for this position. Ph.D. in area of specialization prior to appointment. Experience and publication record appropriate to rank. Competence in appropriate ancient and modern languages. CUA was founded in the name of the Catholic Church as a national university and center of research and scholarship. Regardless of their religious affiliation, all faculty are expected to respect and support the University’s mission. AAE/EO. Salary competitive. Direct inquiries to: Kurt Pritzl, O.P., Dean, School of Philosophy, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC 20064. Applications will be reviewed until the position is filled. (184W), posted 12/15/09" Can't we all have a chuckle about the last line? Regardless of religious affiliation, the priest we'll eventually hire is expected to support the University's mission. Check.) If we have few atheists going in to phil religion and we discover that most philosophers of religion are theists, is this similar to, say, lots of grad students going in to, say, chemistry and ending up with rough consensus on very uninteresting facts about chemical composition? [Maybe if we had a large number of cases where the atheists undergo conversions, the problem of self-selection might be mitigated, but I don't think we have that. Yes, there's some data that suggests that there are more theist grad students than faculty but I think that provides little support for the hypothesis that large numbers of conversions are taking place when grad students start serious work on philosophy of religion and earn their PhD.]

So far, I think I haven't said anything you disagreed with or would disagree with. One potential difference between the case of atheist non-specialist and theist-specialist and more familiar cases of disagreement between expert and non-expert is this. It seems that the majority of experts might agree on two things:
(i) The arguments that non-experts give for the non-existence of X (some theoretical entity experts claim to study) fail;
(ii) Experts can rationally believe in the existence of X.

That is perfectly consistent with two further claims:
(iii) The experts are evenly divided on why the arguments that non-experts give for the non-existence of X fail and the two sides think that the opposing diagnostic views are mistaken;
(iv) The experts are evenly divided as to why it is that some expert can rationally believe in the existence of X and the two sides think that those on the opposing side are wrong as to why it is that someone can rationally believe in X.

If (i)-(iv) are known to expert and non-expert alike, I think that this might mitigate the pressure non-experts would be under to bring their attitudes concerning the existence of X in line with the experts. Given some reasonable assumptions about peer disagreement, it's not entirely clear that the experts should be quite as confident as they are in their attitudes about the existence of X, that's a fact known to the non-experts, and when the experts are more confident than they should be, their high degree of confidence seems like a weak reason to endorse their views (although, it might still be a strong reason to weaken confidence in the non-existence of X).

If non-experts believed there were no electrons, but the experts both agreed that there were and agreed on the reasons that they took to be adequate for believing in electrons and agreed to what a proper response to the non-expert argument for the non-existence of electrons was, the non-experts are being very unreasonable. If non-experts believed that there was no God, but experts tended to reject both what other experts said about reasons to believe in God and reasons to discount the arguments for God's non-existence, the argument from authority of expert opinion shouldn't be nearly as good as it is with the case of electrons.

For what it's worth, I doubt that the levels of disagreement among experts is so significant as to completely undermine any sort of argument from authority. But, the hypothesis that there is widespread disagreement among the experts of a kind that I think would undercut an argument from authority seems perfectly consistent with the data that we get from the PhilPapers survey. So, it would be interesting to see if the details of an argument from authority could be worked out, but it seems (to me) to be an immensely complicated undertaking.

One thing that seems to matter is the size of the knowledge gap that separates experts from non-experts. Is the size of the gap between expert and non-expert in philosophy (who has a PhD in philosophy and probably knows a fair bit of epistemology, metaphysics, applied ethics, and ethical theory) comparable to the size of the knowledge gap between experts who work in climatology and those non-experts that disagree with their claims? My guess is that there is going to be a significant difference in the size of the knowledge gaps, but I think that that's perfectly consistent with saying that the non-experts in all these fields ought to be less confident that they have it right and the experts don't.

Actually, the difference between experts and non-experts in climatology, for example, is not all that large. A mechanical engineer, a physicist, or a physical chemist, for example, can handle the heat transfer and fluid mechanics theory routinely used in modeling climates. Climatology is a field of specialization where these theories are applied to a particular problem. For instance, if I wanted to get a Ph.D in climatology, I would not have to take any math courses, for example, because I have already taken the most difficult graduate level mathematical physics course offered by a university in the country (from what I am told). I have taken all available courses in non-linear mathematics, as well when in graduate school. I would have to take certain courses in would weather, etc., but I would already have much of the background.

There is something to be said for autodydactism. I am not a botanist, but I am regarded as the world's expert on musical reed material. To be fair, I did take graduate plant anatomy, but I had to learn a lot of other material on my own, including fluid mechanics, strength of materials, finite element analysis, etc. Interdisciplinary researchers are expected to become comfortable in different areas. I consult dedicated experts when something exceeds my abilities, but the ability to discuss matters intelligently with them shows that the knowledge gap is not so great that a non-expert cannot make an intelligent contribution. I am not a philosopher, but for my study of the logic of humor I reproduced, independently, a theory based on situated set theory and have done a great deal of work in possible world logic and incongruity theory.

All of that being said, whether or not a person is a theist is not a matter of the mind and philosophy, so much as as a matter of the soul and grace. Jesus said [Matt 11:25 - 27],

At that time Jesus declared, "I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes;
yea, Father, for such was thy gracious will.
All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

In other words, whether or not a person believes in God is, first and foremost, a matter of grace. People may impede the action of grace by having a poorly formed philosophy, but God can even overcome this. The problem really is that there is not enough people living the Christian life to form an effective witness so that grace may overcome poor philosophy.

The Chicken

Hey Chicken,

"Actually, the difference between experts and non-experts in climatology, for example, is not all that large. A mechanical engineer, a physicist, or a physical chemist, for example, can handle the heat transfer and fluid mechanics theory routinely used in modeling climates. Climatology is a field of specialization where these theories are applied to a particular problem. For instance, if I wanted to get a Ph.D in climatology, I would not have to take any math courses, for example, because I have already taken the most difficult graduate level mathematical physics course offered by a university in the country (from what I am told). I have taken all available courses in non-linear mathematics, as well when in graduate school. I would have to take certain courses in would weather, etc., but I would already have much of the background."

I wouldn't disagree with that, but I should stress that for the purposes of the argument from the authority of specialists in philosophy of religion as an argument addressed to atheists in philosophy we're measuring the knowledge gap between experts and non-experts who disagree about some specific claim in the experts' field of study (e.g., that God exists) and not just the knowledge gap between experts and non-experts who mightn't disagree because the non-expert agrees with the expert or doesn't believe one way or the other. I don't know offhand, but I don't know if there's significant disagreement about global warming between climatologists and non-climatologists with significant scientific credentials (e.g., graduate level work done in physics).

Clayton,

I'm not sure that what Ed means by "authority" is quite what you mean by "expert." I take it that the judgments of those whom he and Aquinas would consider authorities are, or are taken by Ed and Aquinas to be, more reliable than experts in, say, philosophy of science. According to the PhilPapers survey, approximately 70% of professors or PhDs are scientific realists. But no one has demonstrated the falsity of the various critiques of a naive positivism--or, to use a term lately endorsed by Rosenberg, scientism--developed by (or from the arguments of) Kuhn, Feyerabend, Rorty, or more recently, Kyle Stanford. What 70% of these experts believe is quite irrelevant--as irrelevant as what 70% of the experts believed about the nature and operations of gravity in 1845. The fact is that our contemporary experts are driven by ideology to the point that they have simply chosen to ignore the more intractable arguments against the possibility of science's discovering the truth about our world. And we haven't even mentioned Hume, according to whose arguments most books of contemporary physics should be tossed in the fire. There are indeed a multitude of arguments that suffice to provide intellectual comfort to those who want to believe them, but one has to be either naive or dishonest to assert that these arguments are so decisive that those whom they do not persuade are irrational or perverse.

In short, the fact that "there is no general metaphysical picture that our best science supports"--given that "our best science" is determined by the consensus of "experts"--is in the end utterly irrelevant to philosophy, or anyway to philosophy that is sincerely motivated by the love of wisdom.

"I'm not sure that what Ed means by "authority" is quite what you mean by "expert.""

Mark,

You might be right. I was thinking of "expert" as it is used in the passage quoted from the previous post, which may well not be "authority" as he intends it in the post above.

This is off-topic, but I would love for someone to jump the shark by posting about David Hume's essay, Of Miracles.

TomH, we have a whole two sections on it in this article. See pp. 46-53 and pp. 60ff. Enjoy.

http://www.lydiamcgrew.com/Resurrectionarticlesinglefile.pdf

Hello Clayton,

Thanks for that. Some comments:

Another complicating factor is self-selection. Are atheists less inclined to go into philosophy of religion than theists? If so, does that affect the argument from authority?

That is not implausible, though it's not a sure thing either. Sometimes people who at least lean toward atheism go into the field precisely to think through more thoroughly the atheistic position they are already inclined toward, and/or more thoroughly to develop arguments against religion if they think it is something that is important to refute. Here's one atheist that was true of: me, in my younger days. And I can think of a couple of other people I knew in grad school who were atheists who specialized in philosophy of religion. And of course there are not a few people who write a lot on philosophy of religion from an atheistic point of view (e.g. Michael Martin, Keith Parsons, Kai Nielsen, the younger Antony Flew). That's all anecdotal or impressionistic, I realize, but it does suggest that it is a strong interest in religion -- whether sympathetic or unsympathetic -- rather than sympathy for religion, that is (unsurprisingly) a better predictor of whether someone goes into phil of religion.

Here's another point: If some young philosopher decides phil of religion isn't worth his time, why might that be? Well, here's one possibility: He is already, with respect to religion (as most young people are about conventional wisdom generally, at least where it impacts their personal lives) very open to the suggestion that what his parents taught him is all a bunch of hooey. Then he takes a PHIL 101 class and hears the superficial potted objections to the classical arguments ("If everyting has a cause, what caused God?" etc.). The idea that religion has no rational foundation, already agreeable to him, is seemingly confirmed, and he is happy to conclude that there is no need to pursue the subject in any greater depth. He wouldn't be so glib about (say) accepting external world skepticism, because he has no motivation to want that to be true. So, that he is happy to pursue further in grad school. But perhaps his personal inclination to want atheism to be true keeps him from pursuing phil of religion in greater depth.

So, what we have is this: In answer to your first question quoted above -- "Are atheists less inclined to go into philosophy of religion than theists?" -- I would say "Plausibly so, though probably not to quite as large a degree as it might seem at first glance." And in answer to the second question -- "If so, does that affect the argument from authority?" -- I'm inclined to say "Not in any obvious way, because whatever lack of objectivity might underlie some believers' interest in the field is plausibly matched by a lack of objectivity underlying some atheits' disinterest in it."

Can't we all have a chuckle about the last line? Regardless of religious affiliation, the priest we'll eventually hire is expected to support the University's mission. Check.

Yeah, it's ridiculous.

Re: your (i)-(iv), I think that's plausible enough as far as it goes, but I also think that the situation in philosophy -- whatever the subfield -- is different than it is in natural science, at least in the hard sciences. The reason is that what we might call the quantificational method (mathematical modeling, etc.) pretty much makes something approaching consensus inevitable -- indeed, it is favored in natural science precisely (in part) for that reason. Repeatable, measurable results are hard to argue with. Philosophy doesn't have that method because (I would say) it deals largely with phenomena that are simply not susceptible of that sort of analysis. Neither, incidentally, are fields like history -- including the history of life -- which is a big reason the social sciences and even biology are more controversial than physics and chemistry. I would say that a lot of metaphysics masquerading as "natural science" -- and it may or may not be good metaphysics, that's another issue -- is inevitably doing a large part (not all, but a large part) of the work here. Or one call it "natural science" if one likes, but one should be aware that what is going on is not (entirely) the same thing that is going on in physics and chemistry.

Anyway, the point is that there is arguably an "apples and oranges" problem in applying (i)-(iv). What significance we should attach to disagreement among experts, mismatches between non-expert opinions and expert ones, etc. will plausibly depend on which field we're talking about. Disagreement can reflect bias -- on either side of an issue -- but agreement may reflect a lack of bias only because it stems from a method that shrinks the phenomena to be investigated down to the point where disagreement becomes almost impossible. "Let's study what we can precisely quantify and predict" is good advice if you're interested in those aspects of reality that are quantifiable and predictable. But it is not good advice for dealing with aspects of reality that aren't like that. More to the present point, a lack of consensus in a field does not necessarily entail a lack of objectivity, competence, worthwhile subject matter, etc. in that field. And thus the way we evaluate the deliverances of the experts in that field must differ from the way we evaluate what the experts say in a field like physics.

In other words: A complete theory of what makes for a good argument from authority cannot fail to be a complete metaphysics and complete philosophy of science!

In any event, as I've said, I don't regard arguments from authority as anything close to conclusive on their own. What "The experts in philosophy of religion tend to think God exists" tells us is just this: We'd better not be too glib in rejecting arguments for theism. But by the same token, "The experts in philosophy of mind tend to be naturalists" tells us that we'd better not be too glib in rejecting arguments for naturalism. I used to think the philosophers of religion were wrong and that the philosophers of mind were right, and now I think the opposite in each case. And in both cases my change of view was driven by further study in the relevant fields. So I certainly do think the experts can be (and often are) wrong!

Ed,

From what I have found in philosophy, one of the important features of expertise is that one can learn from the experts some of the important questions to ask and whose work to read. When I was researching PS, I mostly just followed the bibliographies. Hopefully a reader will benefit from my experience here.

Would you characterize your earlier self as an ideologue? How about now? How many of the experts would you say are radically ideological in some way and how does it impact their philosophy, if at all? How common is it for philosophers to retain a hidden (maybe unknowing) commitment to scientism?

"The experts in philosophy of mind tend to be naturalists" tells us that we'd better not be too glib in rejecting arguments for naturalism.

I disagree, because the question whether or not naturalism is true is a metaphysical question not a philosophy-of-mind question. So unless these philosophy-of-mind experts are also experts in metaphysics (and I think it is painfully obvious that they are not) then they are speaking as amateurs on the subject. Moreover, if these philosophy of mind experts refuse to accept the conclusions of sound metaphysics regarding the primacy of immaterial being, they cannot even claim to be experts in the philosophy of mind; for, like all particular sciences, the philosphy of mind is subject to metaphysics, from which it receives its principles.

Actually, I don't think philosophy of mind can possibly be separated from metaphysics. Insofar as I do anything in philosophy of mind myself, it just _is_ metaphysics.

Lydia,

Here's how St. Thomas and Aristotle would look at it:

The subject of metaphysics is being insofar as it is being, while the subject of the philosophy of mind is being insofar as it is human and intelligent being. Therefore, the relation between the two sciences is that between a universal and a particular; and the latter falls under the former, and not visa versa. Nor is the one identified with the other.

That the two sciences cannot be separated is true, just as you cannot separate being from a particular being. And just as the particular being depends on being in general, so does the particular science depend on the general science. Therefore, when you say, "Insofar as I do anything in philosophy of mind myself, it just is metaphysics," what you are really saying is that you are applying metaphysics to the study of the mind, which is really the only way it can be done.

"the question whether or not naturalism is true is a metaphysical question not a philosophy-of-mind question. So unless these philosophy-of-mind experts are also experts in metaphysics (and I think it is painfully obvious that they are not) then they are speaking as amateurs on the subject. Moreover, if these philosophy of mind experts refuse to accept the conclusions of sound metaphysics regarding the primacy of immaterial being, they cannot even claim to be experts in the philosophy of mind; for, like all particular sciences, the philosphy of mind is subject to metaphysics, from which it receives its principles."

Funnily enough, I think a lot of specialists in philosophy of religion are also not up on the metaphysics literature.

I think what goes on in both philosophy of religion and philosophy of mind is this. Some people in philosophy of religion investigate the question of whether God exists and how we know God exists (e.g., Richard Swinburne). But others in the philosophy of religion take it for granted that God exists and want instead to do philosophical theology on the presupposition that He exists (e.g., Richard Cross).

Similarly, some people in philosophy of mind investigate the question whether the mind could be purely physical (e.g., Jaegwon Kim), while other philosophers of mind investigate other questions, like, given that the mind is physical, what is information in the mind? (Say, Millikan.)

To the extent that philosophers of religion can give plausible answers to philosophically theological questions, that increases the likelihood that God exists. Similarly, to the extent that philosophers of mind can give good answer to "how the mind works" questions, that increases the chance that materialism about the mind is true.

Now, there is one difference between philosophers of religion and philosophers of mind on this score: since God's existence is considered by most philosophers to be highly questionable, many philosophers of religion have to have at least a fairly good understanding of arguments for the existence of God and responses to the problem of evil in order to justify their existence. Alternatively, since most philosophers are fideists with regard to physicalism, most philosophers of mind can happily plug away without worrying about mental causation, qualia, what Mary knows, the Chinese Room problem, etc.

So, theistic philosophers of religion are more able to justify the propriety of the projects in general than materialists are. Having said that, if I'm right that working out the consequences of a presupposition in a plausible way helps to confirm the truth of that presupposition, then naturalists have a more thoroughly worked out research program than theists do, and so to that extent have a better confirmed metaphysic. Well, they would if it weren't for the fact that the medievals worked out this stuff pretty systematically already, and so we have them to draw upon.

Similarly, to the extent that philosophers of mind can give good answer to "how the mind works" questions, that increases the chance that materialism about the mind is true.

I'd be inclined to disagree with that statement.

"I'd be inclined to disagree with [the] statement [that to the extent that philosophers of mind can give good answers to 'how the mind works' questions, that increases the chance that materialism about the mind is true]."

Even if the answers are good ones?

Bobcat,

I don't think that you appreciate enough the distinction between philosophy and academia. The real question is not about who has "a more thoroughly worked out research program," but rather what is true.

I agree that what matters most of all is what's true. But I also think it's possible that a false theory can have some evidence in its favor. Ergo, even though naturalism isn't true, it could have evidence in its favor, for example, it being able to explain a wide variety of mental phenomena in mechanical terms.

Even if the answers are good ones?

I would not agree that the answers can be good ones in any sense that would provide evidence for physicalism, because I can tell that physicalism is false by direct awareness of my own mind. It just isn't an empirical issue at all, in my opinion. I think it's highly interesting that certain chemical changes can cause mental experiences (or whatever), because I'm an interactive dualist and am always interested in learning new truths about how the mind and body interact. But as far as I'm concerned, even extremely good explanations and descriptions of physical causes that have mental effects or that correlate with mental events could not even begin to support physicalism concerning the mind.

Bobcat,
This is an exceedingly long article, and some parts of it are too technical for me, but I believe it relates to what you are getting at. It describes how a modal physical system like the brain can produce consciousness. It also accepts dualism in terms of information and the relational space between information.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2202/5/42

I should say, I agree with Lydia that we can tell that materialism in the philosophy of mind is false simply through introspection. That said, I'm willing to concede that there are perhaps certain functions of the mind that could be cashed out materialistically, though I couldn't tell you what.

Ergo, even though naturalism isn't true, it could have evidence in its favor, for example, it being able to explain a wide variety of mental phenomena in mechanical terms.


Bobcat,

You should know that according to traditional scholastic understanding many mental activities, such as memory, imagination, etc., are performed by bodily organs. It is only the intellect and the will that are immaterial. Therefore, the materialists cannot be credited with discovering this. Nor is this evidence of materialism.

Dualists and Cartesians (like Lydia) believe that all mental activities are immaterial, because they reject hylomorphism and discount the principles of potency and act.

But George R., by that logic the Jainists should be credited with the discovery of the atom rather than Jean Perrin. In other words, it's one thing to argue from plausible metaphysical principles to the claim that atoms exist, or that memory, imagination, etc., are physical rather than non-physical processes, but it's quite another to really systematize and provide experimental evidence for that view.

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