The Epistemology of Experts

This volume presents new research on the epistemology of experts. It features original essays from leading epistemologists on this timely topic.

Modern societies benefit significantly from a certain kind of epistemic division of labor: they outsource much of their epistemic work to well-trained cognitive experts. However, due to their degree of specialization, cognitive sophistication, and highly privileged status, cognitive experts tend to become alienated from laypeople. This leads to what one may call the paradox of experts: as experts become more competent, specialized, and sophisticated, the harder it will be for laypeople to identify and trust experts. The chapters in this volume explore the epistemology of expert judgment across several core themes and crucial questions:

1. Analysis of Experts: What does it take to be a cognitive expert?
2. Epistemic Authority: How much should we concede experts over laypeople?
3. The Social Roles of Experts: What role do experts play in society, and what role should they play?
4. Challenges: What problems arise from experts’ epistemic authority and societal role?

The Epistemology of Experts is an essential resource for scholars and advanced students working in epistemology, philosophy of science, political philosophy, and the sociology of knowledge.

Peter Brössel is Jr. Professor of Philosophy at Ruhr University Bochum, where he also directs the Emmy Noether Research Group ‘From Perception to Belief and Back Again.’ His research interests include epistemology, philosophy of science, language, and mind, focusing on rational reasoning, confirmation theory, perception, language learning, and social aspects of reasoning.

Anna-Maria Asunta Eder is Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Cologne, specializing in epistemology, philosophy of logic, philosophy of science, and metaphilosophy. Her research addresses topics such as epistemic normativity and rationality, the social dimensions of rational reasoning, and conceptual engineering.

Thomas Grundmann is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cologne. From 2016 until 2018, he was president of the German Society for Analytic Philosophy. He has published numerously on topics from general epistemology (skepticism, epistemic concepts, a priori knowledge), philosophical methodology, and applied social epistemology, for example, disagreement and epistemic authority.