The Trouble With Skeptics

[joreth]

or The Misuse Of The Argument From Authority AccusationFirst, a couple of disclaimers. 1) I'm going to use the word "skeptic" in this post to lump everyone from the skeptics, secular, humanist, and atheist communities into a single label. Those communities are absolutely not interchangable, let's get that straight right up front. Being an atheist

Comments

Argument from Authority

[edm]

It strikes me that your second and third examples (about people's personal experiences) aren't even Argument from Authority as that term is usually understood in logic: they're arguments from personal experience. As I was taught it, Argument from Authority necessarily involves an appeal to an external authority figure/reference item. Whereas both of those examples have people appealing to their own experiences. Anecdata might not be terribly persuasive in many situations, but when it comes to how someone feels their own report of how they feel is the most direct information available. (There are still filters: language, framing/context, willingness to be open, etc. But there isn't another direct source.)

To my eye for reports of personal experiences to be used as an Argument from Authority one would need to appeal to someone else's report of their feelings as persuasive evidence ("Jo is very experienced at polyamory and reports that they can love multiple equally at the same time, therefore it is possible"); by the time you get

Re: Argument from Authority

[joreth]

You're absolutely right, which is why the misuse of the fallacy accusation is so frustrating. I'm actually seeing the accusation using the phrase "argument from authority" in these situations

Re: Argument from Authority

[edm]

Yes "'splaining" is a useful term, if somewhat overapplied ("mansplaining" also seems somewhat overapplied; in some situations it appears to be a short hand for "I don't recognise your experience as relevant because of your gender (presentation)" and/or the choice of language, such as not starting sentence with "in my experience" or "I've found"). Appeals to authority and 'splaining to seem closely related, in preferring an external source over someone's own direct experience.

I also agree that your example here seems closer to the "argument from authority fallacy". The person in question seems to have sufficient experience to, eg, qualify as an expert witness in court for that area, so it's reasonable to appeal to that authority -- at least over someone "reasoning from first principles" (ie, extrapolating from something vaguely relevant they know).

Ewen

[virginia_fell]

Is it okay to link this around? I'd like to keep it and use it as a resource later, but this is also your personal journal so I wasn't sure.

[joreth]

Yep, it's OK :-)