Not all Authority is bad—probability theory is also a kind of Authority
Authority seems like a bad word to use here. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say.
This is partially because:
Authority is almost always used to describe argumentation based on sources other than logic or evidence. You’re using it to describe probability theory which is a kind of logic and evidence.
Authority is practically meaningless as a concept if it includes both accurate and inaccurate foundations of argumentation. Probability theory works, appeals to authority don’t.
X is an authority with respect to a proposition P to the extent that X’s assertion of P is evidence for P.
When someone uses “authority” in your sense #1, I understand them to be referring to something that claims to be an authority but is not actually authoritative. I agree that it’s a very common usage though, especially in communities that are imprecise about their use of language. In such communities I might say “expert” instead, or “reliable source,” or various other phrases that more-or-less mean the same thing but might differ in their connotations.
Authority is almost always used to describe argumentation based on sources other than logic or evidence.
The right kind of authority is based on logic and evidence. Most of most people’ beliefs have not been personally
verified by them. You probably havent’ personally proven probability theory from scratch
Authority is practically meaningless as a concept if it includes both accurate and inaccurate foundations of argumentation
Fortunately, English allows us to qualify nouns with adjectives. Which allows us to distinguish between X-ish and Y-ish authorities.
. Probability theory works, appeals to authority don’t.
Probability allows you to do things with clearly defined idea and evidence. Getting them clearly defined is the underwater part of the iceberg. That probability theory doens’t help with.
Authority is almost always used to describe argumentation based on sources other than logic or evidence.
I don’t think that’s true. Most uses of “authority” are not about argumentation at all. The local parking authority, for existence.
Authority is practically meaningless as a concept if it includes both accurate and inaccurate foundations of argumentation. Probability theory works, appeals to authority don’t.
I’m not sure this even makes sense enough to be wrong. I can’t parse “accurate and inaccurate” with respect to “foundations of argumentation”. Are you meaning to refer to fallacies, or something?
In general, there’s nothing wrong with appeals to authority. It’s well-understood that there is no formal logical step that takes one from “Authority says x” to “x”. Nonetheless, TheOtherDave has it right:
X is an authority with respect to a proposition P to the extent that X’s assertion of P is evidence for P.
This again seems like just a definitional issue, of how to define ‘authority’, and I’ll suggest to everyone not to be tempted to use different definitions as if they’re matters of actual disagreement.
Nobody here believes in the existence of absolute authorities whose word would trump any amount of other evidence—but even random people off the street might have opinions on a subject that could be considered ‘Bayesian evidence’ towards a conclusion; very slim evidence but evidence nonetheless.
Authority: person with opinions that others agree with.
Then far from saying that “there are no authorities”, you ought have said “everyone is an authority”, since every person has at least some opinions that other people agree with. (I at least don’t know of anyone who is wrong about absolutely everything, so by that definition I consider everyone an authority)
I’ll note that this is not a typical usage of the word ‘authority’ and therefore I’ll not be using it in the future as it can only create confusion, not communicate meaning decently.
How is ‘everyone an authority’ different from ‘there are no authorities?’
Well, using your definition of authority as “person with opinions that others agree with”, these statements would translate as follows:
‘everyone is an authority’ becomes “Every person has opinions that others agree with.”
‘there are no authorities’ becomes “No person has opinions that others agree with.”
The problem is that you seem to want to use the connotations of the word “authority”, but you aren’t explicitly including them in your definition.
What’s your definition?.
I don’t use the word ‘authority’ in reference to people, because it communicates meaning badly. I’d prefer to use a word like ‘expert’ or a phrase like ‘informed on the subject’.
Someone is more of an expert on something than someone else if they have more useful experience on it.
Someone is more informed of a topic than someone else if they possess more accurate information about it.
You keep arguing about definitions and you’ve still not uttered any concrete disagreement, you still seem to be just playing with words.
At the risk of repeating myself I’ll weigh in here: X is an authority with respect to a proposition P to the extent that X’s assertion of P is evidence for P.
On many topics, some people’s assertions are stronger evidence than others. That makes those people authorities on those topics, relatively speaking.
To my mind, the interesting question is how we best distinguish actual authorities on a topic from people who merely claim authority. That’s difficult. But the first step in learning distinguish among A and B is to acknowledge that A and B actually are different things: in this case, that actual authorities on a topic are a distinct thing in the world from non-authorities.
Asserting that there are no authorities, or that everyone is equally authoritative, is a step in the wrong direction.
You know what, if you were to actually have to program a conclusion-drawing machine, not just philosophize about it, I’d bet that your decision algorithm in which conclusions are drawn “based upon the rationality of their assertions alone” would be indistinguishable from a decision algorithm in which conclusions are based on “‘evidence’ (which are opinions)”.
You might name the functions differently through, you might have a “concludeBasedOnRationailty()” function instead of a “concludeBasedOnEvidence()” function. I bet it would still translate into the same code, because there’s not a single word you’ve stated that relates to anything other than how we name things.
Authority seems like a bad word to use here. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. This is partially because:
Authority is almost always used to describe argumentation based on sources other than logic or evidence. You’re using it to describe probability theory which is a kind of logic and evidence.
Authority is practically meaningless as a concept if it includes both accurate and inaccurate foundations of argumentation. Probability theory works, appeals to authority don’t.
X is an authority with respect to a proposition P to the extent that X’s assertion of P is evidence for P.
When someone uses “authority” in your sense #1, I understand them to be referring to something that claims to be an authority but is not actually authoritative. I agree that it’s a very common usage though, especially in communities that are imprecise about their use of language. In such communities I might say “expert” instead, or “reliable source,” or various other phrases that more-or-less mean the same thing but might differ in their connotations.
The right kind of authority is based on logic and evidence. Most of most people’ beliefs have not been personally verified by them. You probably havent’ personally proven probability theory from scratch
Fortunately, English allows us to qualify nouns with adjectives. Which allows us to distinguish between X-ish and Y-ish authorities.
Probability allows you to do things with clearly defined idea and evidence. Getting them clearly defined is the underwater part of the iceberg. That probability theory doens’t help with.
I don’t think that’s true. Most uses of “authority” are not about argumentation at all. The local parking authority, for existence.
I’m not sure this even makes sense enough to be wrong. I can’t parse “accurate and inaccurate” with respect to “foundations of argumentation”. Are you meaning to refer to fallacies, or something?
In general, there’s nothing wrong with appeals to authority. It’s well-understood that there is no formal logical step that takes one from “Authority says x” to “x”. Nonetheless, TheOtherDave has it right:
It’s worth remembering that other evidence screens off authority, but you have to take the evidence that you can get.
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This again seems like just a definitional issue, of how to define ‘authority’, and I’ll suggest to everyone not to be tempted to use different definitions as if they’re matters of actual disagreement.
Nobody here believes in the existence of absolute authorities whose word would trump any amount of other evidence—but even random people off the street might have opinions on a subject that could be considered ‘Bayesian evidence’ towards a conclusion; very slim evidence but evidence nonetheless.
.
Then far from saying that “there are no authorities”, you ought have said “everyone is an authority”, since every person has at least some opinions that other people agree with. (I at least don’t know of anyone who is wrong about absolutely everything, so by that definition I consider everyone an authority)
I’ll note that this is not a typical usage of the word ‘authority’ and therefore I’ll not be using it in the future as it can only create confusion, not communicate meaning decently.
.
Appropriate authority:Expert.
Expert: Person whose opinions are worth something.
Well, using your definition of authority as “person with opinions that others agree with”, these statements would translate as follows:
‘everyone is an authority’ becomes “Every person has opinions that others agree with.”
‘there are no authorities’ becomes “No person has opinions that others agree with.”
The problem is that you seem to want to use the connotations of the word “authority”, but you aren’t explicitly including them in your definition.
I don’t use the word ‘authority’ in reference to people, because it communicates meaning badly. I’d prefer to use a word like ‘expert’ or a phrase like ‘informed on the subject’.
.
To quote, prefix the quote with a greater-than sign
>. See the “Show help” button for more.Someone is more of an expert on something than someone else if they have more useful experience on it. Someone is more informed of a topic than someone else if they possess more accurate information about it.
You keep arguing about definitions and you’ve still not uttered any concrete disagreement, you still seem to be just playing with words.
At the risk of repeating myself I’ll weigh in here: X is an authority with respect to a proposition P to the extent that X’s assertion of P is evidence for P.
On many topics, some people’s assertions are stronger evidence than others. That makes those people authorities on those topics, relatively speaking.
To my mind, the interesting question is how we best distinguish actual authorities on a topic from people who merely claim authority. That’s difficult. But the first step in learning distinguish among A and B is to acknowledge that A and B actually are different things: in this case, that actual authorities on a topic are a distinct thing in the world from non-authorities.
Asserting that there are no authorities, or that everyone is equally authoritative, is a step in the wrong direction.
.
You know what, if you were to actually have to program a conclusion-drawing machine, not just philosophize about it, I’d bet that your decision algorithm in which conclusions are drawn “based upon the rationality of their assertions alone” would be indistinguishable from a decision algorithm in which conclusions are based on “‘evidence’ (which are opinions)”.
You might name the functions differently through, you might have a “concludeBasedOnRationailty()” function instead of a “concludeBasedOnEvidence()” function. I bet it would still translate into the same code, because there’s not a single word you’ve stated that relates to anything other than how we name things.