Intellectual Self-Reliance
Intuitive, Attractive, Nonsensical
More from Epistemic Authority:
The idea that one should treat other persons as less trustworthy than oneself occurs repeatedly in modern philosophy, although often without argument.1 In the practical domain it is reflected in the common aphorism that if you want something done right, do it yourself. The epistemic version of that view is that if you want to make sure your question is answered correctly, find out the answer yourself. This way of thinking has an intuitive attraction, but it is hard to make sense out of it. How is it possible that each person's own faculties are more trustworthy than the faculties of any other person? Should those other persons rely upon themselves or upon her? There is, of course, a class of beliefs about which each person has first-person privilege: beliefs about one's own mental states. Presumably, each person is a more trustworthy source of beliefs in that category than any other person, but that is a special case. It is not the one relevant to the claim that getting beliefs on one's own is more trustworthy than getting beliefs from others. Very few of my beliefs are or reduce to beliefs for which I have a special privilege.
[Author footnote]: An example from Rousseau: "We would seek the truth . . . in sincerity, we must lay no stress on the place or circumstance of our birth, nor on the authority of fathers and teachers; but appeal to the dictates of reason and conscience concerning every thing that is taught us in our youth." The Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar, par. 133 (2009).