Arguments from authority and testimony

Abstract

In this paper, we explore some links between authoritative arguments and testimony as a source of knowledge. After an introduction, in the second part of the work, we clarify and exemplify the concepts of argument from authority and testimony. We distinguish between theoretical and practical arguments and give their respective formal schemes. In the third part, we focus on the use of arguments from authority and testimony in the thought of Aristotle and St. Augustine. In the fourth part, we try to show that the devaluation of arguments from authority, in some modern philosophers, ran parallel with a reductionist position in relation to testimony. But we recognize in the Port Royal Logic a more balanced position. In the fifth part, our perspective is more systematic in comparing the criteria given by contemporary philosophers, for accepting arguments from authority and testimonies. In the sixth part, various types of authority are distinguished. The last part of this paper is devoted to the conclusions.