Questioning Experts and Expertise

Book excerpt: The role of experts and their expertise, in our personal and social lives, has taken centre stage in the debates about our post-COVID-19 world. Scientific disinformation is rife, and expertise is badly needed to tackle highly complex social problems. This book brings together philosophers, sociologists and policy experts to discuss the nature, scope and limitations of expert advice in policy decisions. The chapters collected here address some of the most fundamental questions in the debate on the role of experts. They explore, among others, the definitions of expertise, the role of experts in modern democracies, the dilemma of choosing between equally competent and qualified experts who cannot agree, the objectivity of expert judgements, the relationship between experts and novices in polarised social settings and the conditions on the trustworthiness of experts. These explorations, by some of the best- known academics working in the field, highlight the complexities of the questions they address but also lay down a road map for addressing them. The chapters in this book were originally published in Social Epistemology: A Journal of Knowledge, Culture and Policy.