Expertise and public ignorance

Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 15 (3-4):375-386 (2003)
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Abstract

Recent sociological/philosophical treatments of expertise, best represented by the work of Steve Fuller, attempt to (1) reduce displays of expertise to sophistic exercises of discretionary power, and (2) refute the claim that because laypeople are epistemically inferior to experts, it is rational to defer to an expert's opinion rather than making up one's own mind. But upon inspection, Fuller fails to provide reasonable grounds for liberating laypeople from the tyranny of cognitive authoritarianism. Rather, he presents a patronizing description of the expert‐lay relation, one that actually makes the public seem more ignorant than is warranted.

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Evan Selinger
Rochester Institute of Technology

Citations of this work

On interactional expertise: Pragmatic and ontological considerations.Evan Selinger & John Mix - 2004 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 3 (2):145-163.
Thinking the Unthinkable as a Radical Scientific Project.Steve Fuller - 2010 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 22 (4):397-413.
Thinking the Unthinkable as a Radical Scientific Project.Steve Fuller - 2010 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 22 (4):397-413.
Rational Democracy, Deliberation, and Reality.Manfred Prisching - 2010 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 22 (2-3):185-225.
Rational Democracy, Deliberation, and Reality.Manfred Prisching - 2010 - Critical Review: A Journal of Politics and Society 22 (2):185-225.

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References found in this work

Science, truth, and democracy.Philip Kitcher - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Epistemic dependence.John Hardwig - 1985 - Journal of Philosophy 82 (7):335-349.
Science, Truth, and Democracy.A. Bird - 2003 - Mind 112 (448):746-749.
Appeal to Expert Opinion: Arguments From Authority.Douglas Neil Walton - 1997 - University Park, PA, USA: Pennsylvania State University Press.
Social Epistemology.Steve Fuller - 1990 - Erkenntnis 33 (1):131-135.

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