Expert Authority and Personal Testimony

Flashcards covering key concepts of expert authority, personal testimony, premises, and relevance.

Expert Authority

A valid and reliable authority figure recognized in a specific field due to their credentials and expertise.

Conditions for Expert Authority

Four criteria that must be met for an authority to be considered expert: recognized expertise, sufficient credentials, consistent statements with knowledge in their area, and additional measures.

Personal Testimony

Eyewitness accounts used in arguments; considered reliable only under specific conditions of honesty and plausibility.

Plausibility in Testimony

A measure of whether a testimony can be accepted as true based on the honesty of the witness and the logical possibility of the statement.

Sufficient Premise Set

A set of premises that appropriately supports a conclusion, evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Satisfactory vs Supportiveness

Satisfactory relates to the content of a premise; Supportiveness relates to the premise's relevance in supporting the conclusion.

Irrelevance

A premise that has no impact on the support of a conclusion.

Positive Relevance

A premise that, if satisfactory, increases the likelihood of the conclusion being true.

Negative Relevance

A premise that argues against the conclusion, suggesting it should be rejected.

Weight in Premise Set

The significance of premises in relation to the conclusion, considering scope and convictions.

Intermediate Conclusion

A conclusion within an argument that is not the main conclusion but serves as a step towards it.

Personal Testimony – Eyewitness accounts and we only use it when needed.  

• Two conditions: Someone is honest or trustworthy, and their testimony is plausible. 

• Sometimes, people look at the testimony and look at the plausibility and determine it as implausible because it’s not honest or trustworthy.  

• If you do decide they’re not honest or trustworthy, that’s an evaluation of them. The notion of plausibility is done on its own.  

• These are internal/external measures. 

• The form of an eyewitness statement needs to be like a report which means it should be descriptive and omit their judgement upon it. 
  

Example: I was on the street, and I saw these lights heading towards me – Descriptive 

I was almost knocked over by an alien spaceship while I was walking – Report 

Positive Relevance

If a premise is satisfactory, then the conclusion is more likely. 

Irrelvance

The complete absence of supportiveness towards the conclusion.  

Negative Relevance

Supports the rejection of the conclusion, It’s counting against the conclusion. 

Example: Cats are known to destroy furniture; therefore, we should get a cat.  

Insufficient Premise Set  

1. Too many bad premises – You don’t have the right number, it’s unsupportive and insufficient. 

2. Too many good premises – You do have the right number but it’s not enough to support the conclusion of the argument. 

3. Fallacy – It can be formal which violates logical rules, Informal employ problematic uses of content.

Convictions

Anytime you say anything you commit to it. If you accept the conclusion, it’s a conviction you now have.  

Intermediate Conclusion

A conclusion within an argument that's not the main conclusion, but rather a step on the way to it. 

Premise

two conditions, Satisfactory and Supportive.  

What is Satisfactory and Supportiveness

Satisfactory is the content, and Supportiveness is relational, considering the premise in relation to the conclusion.  

Why is a premise satisfactory and not sufficent

A premise can be supportive of a conclusion without being sufficient because support involves some degree of relevance and truth, while sufficiency requires that the support be strong enough to make the conclusion necessarily true. In other words, a premise can provide some evidence or reason for the conclusion, but it might not be strong enough on its own to guarantee the conclusion's truth

What are the creditability conditions for expert authority and why is it important?

Principle of charity

The Principle of Charity is a methodological approach that advocates interpreting a speaker's or writer's statements in the strongest, most reasonable form possible. This principle is crucial for ensuring fair evaluation and understanding of arguments, especially in discussions involving expert authority and personal testimony.

What is an intension and extension or what’s the relationship between both

Intension refers to the properties or qualities that a term conveys, while extension denotes the set of objects that the term applies to. Together, they explain how a concept can be understood both in terms of its definition and its real-world instances.