Deck 7: Personal Experience, Testimony, and Expert Authority

Question 1

Personal experience is always infallible.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

Expert testimony is always infallible.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Only a tiny fraction of what we know about the world is learned on the basis of testimony.

Answer 3

False

Question 4

The book argues that testimony can never be trusted because people often lie.

Question 5

To qualify as an expert, one must have solid academic credentials.

Question 6

Expectation can cause us to see or hear something that is not really there.

Question 7

Memory is infallible.

Question 8

An expert can be mistaken.

Question 9

Thomas Reid is known as the "philosopher of common sense."

Question 10

The book argues that personal experiences cannot be questioned.

Question 11

Cite someone you believe to be an expert on a subject and explain what makes the person an expert.

Question 12

Cite someone widely believed to be an expert on a subject whom you believe does not deserve the title.

Question 13

Explain a situation in your life where you relied on the testimony of someone else to find the truth … and you were misled. What went wrong?

Question 14

Cite an item of your own knowledge that is justified on the basis of personal testimony.