Reflection: Who Do You Trust and Why?

Prompts to consider

• Nyāya says testimony is valid when it comes from an āpta, someone who knows the truth and communicates it sincerely. Think of the major domains of your knowledge: science, history, ethics, your own family history. For each, can you identify an actual āpta whose reliability you can trace, or do you rely on institutions, traditions, and texts whose authority you take on faith?
• Mīmāṃsā argues that intrinsic validity is the default, cognition is valid until defeated. How does this compare to the Enlightenment ideal of suspending all belief until positively justified? Which default seems more epistemically honest to you, and which is more practically sustainable?
• The Vedānta tradition says the highest truths, about ultimate reality, about the nature of the self, exceed both perception and inference and can only be reached through scripture. Is there a domain of knowledge in your own life where you find this compelling: where the thing you most want to know seems to exceed the reach of observation and argument? What do you do with that excess?