Objectivity, Autonomy, and the use of Arguments from Authority Starting in the early modern era, the use of arguments from authority to support important factual claims began to be heavily criticized. Recent investigations into the nature of testimony, however, suggest that such criticisms are factually and normatively problematic. In this paper, the author argues for a model of testimonial authority that corrects this earlier, unrealistically individualistic picture of how person bear their burdens in the search for a common reality.