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Symptoms of Expertise: Knowledge, Understanding and Other Cognitive Goods

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For Nadja

All men by nature desire to understand [eidénai]. (Aristotle, Metaphysics I, 980a21)

Knowing a lot [polumathíê] does not yet teach you understanding [nóon].

(Heraclitus, Fragment B 40)

Abstract

In this paper, I want to make two main points. (I) The first point is methodological: Instead of attempting to give a classical analysis or reductive definition of the term “expertise”, we should attempt an explication and look for what may be called symptoms of expertise. What this comes to will be explained in due course. (II) My second point is substantial: I want to recommend understanding as an important symptom of expertise. In order to give this suggestion content, I begin to develop an account of understanding. Finally, I will draw attention to some consequences of this approach.

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Notes

  1. In this way, I hope to continue my discussion with philosophers (Scholz 2009; Goldman 2009: 274–276; see also Coady 2012; Gelfert 2014) and to open up a discussion with experts of expertise from other disciplines, especially cognitive and social psychology, sociology and political science.

  2. Cp. Schmitt (ed.) (1994), Haddock/Millar/Pritchard (eds.) (2010) and Goldman/Whitcomb (eds.) (2011). On the history of social epistemology avant la lettre see Schmitt/Scholz (2010).

  3. Derivatively, the main product of this activity, usually a sentence which expresses a result of these efforts, is also called “definition”.

  4. In addition, there is the genealogical approach introduced by Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault and exemplified in important recent work by Edward Craig and Bernard Williams. Instead of asking “How can concept [F] be analyzed?”, they ask “Why do we have concept [F]?”, “What human needs does concept [F] fulfill?” or “What is the point of concept [F]?” Christian Quast, in his contribution to this issue, takes steps to an application of the genealogical approach to the concept “expertise” (Quast 2016). Closely related to the genealogical approach are “ameliorative” analyses that “begin by asking: What is the point of having the concept in question […]? What concept (if any) would do the work best?” (Haslanger 2012: 367, see also 376, 385f.).

  5. Goodman introduced this concept of symptom in his discussion of aesthetic experience (Goodman 1968: 252–255; cp. idem 1978: 67–69 and 1984: 135–138). Let me emphasize that, in the present context, I am not interested in Goodman’s application; nor do I want to claim fancy analogies between “aesthetic experience” and “expertise”. Even less should the term “symptom” suggest that expertise is some kind of disease. I am only interested in the notion as a methodological device for characterizing and clarifying the contents of a concept.

  6. In an Appendix to The Logic of Religion (1965), Bochenski first presented a brief introduction to the logic of authority that he later expanded in a paper “An Analysis of Authority” (Bochenski 1974a) and finally in a little book by the title Was ist Autorität? (Bochenski 1974b).

  7. In 1999, Goldman used the general term “authority”, but it is quite clear that he was dealing with epistemic authority (Goldman 1999: 267–271). In his 2001 paper, he has made explicit that he is focussing on “cognitive or intellectual experts” and “expertise in the cognitive sense” (Goldman 2001: 91). He contrasts “cognitive expertise” with “skill expertise”, but does not mention “deontic authority (or expertise)”. Weinstein distinguishes between “performative expertise”, i.e., an ability “to perform a skill well”, and “epistemic expertise”, i.e., an ability to offer “strong justifications for a range of propositions in a domain” (Weinstein 1993: 58ff.). The most fine-grained analysis of authority I know of is to be found in the works of Richard T. DeGeorge. (DeGeorge 1970, 1976 and Chapter 3 of the 1985 book focus on epistemic authority.).

  8. For additional references see Schröder (2001): 45–48, 126–129. On the modern use of the French, English and German terms for “expert” and related keywords see Williams ²(1983): 129 and Landwehrmann (1972): 875f.

  9. From a methodological point of view, it might be instructive to compare Fred J. Gruenberger’s attempt to solve a different, but related problem: “How does one distinguish between valid scientific work and counterfeit “science”?” (Gruenberger 1964: 1413). In the following, I am indebted to Gruenberger’s approach.

  10. Cf. “[…] experts in a given domain […] have more beliefs (or high degrees of beliefs) in true propositions and/or fewer beliefs in false propositions within that domain than most people do (or better: than the vast majority of people do).” (Goldman 2001: 91.).

  11. In his early discussion of the “problem of expert identifiability” in Goldman 1991, he suggested the following definition: “[…] let us define an expert as someone who either (1) has true answers to core questions in the domain (i.e., believes or assigns high probability to these answers), or (2) has the capacity (usually through the possession of learned methods) to acquire true answers to core questions when they arise.” (Goldman 1991: 129).

  12. My “and” seems more adequate than Goldman’s “or” (cf. Goldman 2001: 92).

  13. In “Expertise and Applied Social Epistemology” (in this issue), Goldman himself, without mentioning our earlier discussion, adduces the example of a physician of the eighth century who may quite plausibly be a medical expert in spite of his having “a super-abundance of false medical beliefs” (Goldman 2016).

  14. The understanding of languages and, more generally, symbol systems (cp. Goodman 1968) has sometimes been treated as a special case of (d) and sometimes as a special case of (f).

  15. To be sure, as Martin is well aware (Martin 1970: 163f.), the emphasis on “connections” is more apt than the metaphorical use of “seeing” that might, misleadingly, suggest mysterious acts of nonphysical perception or fancy flashes of insight.

  16. Kim (1994) and Greco (2014) have emphasized the special importance of dependence relations. I agree that they are vitally important, but I do not want to restrict the general theory of explanation and understanding to the special case of grasping dependence relations.

  17. Cp. the (incomplete) lists in Martin (1970: 156), Vendler (1994: 16), Kim (1994: 67f.), Franklin (1995: 13f.), Greco (2014: 291). Mantzavinos restricts his discussion to “causal nexuses” and “nexuses of meaning” (Mantzavinos 2005: 73–76, 88–94).

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Acknowledgments

I gratefully acknowledge support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Project Grant No. Scho 401/7-1: “Epistemische Expertise: Prolegomena zu einer Erkenntnistheorie von Expertenzeugnissen”). For valuable comments on this paper, I am grateful to Harry Collins, Alvin I. Goldman, Christian Quast and two anonymous reviewers. For discussion on knowledge, episteme, understanding and related matters, I want to thank Johannes Hübner.

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    Oliver R. Scholz

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Scholz, O.R. Symptoms of Expertise: Knowledge, Understanding and Other Cognitive Goods. Topoi 37, 29–37 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11245-016-9429-5

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