Fuller, Steve. (2007) Science democratised = expertise decommissioned. Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science, Vol.1 (No.1). ISSN 1913-0465

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Abstract

Science and expertise have been antithetical forms of knowledge in both the ancient and the modern world, but they appear identical in today’s postmodern world, especially in Science & Technology Studies (STS) literature. The ancient Athenians associated science (epistemé) with the contemplative life afforded to those who lived from inherited wealth. Expertise (techné) was for those lacking property, and hence citizenship. Such people were regularly forced to justify their usefulness to Athenian society. Some foreign merchants, collectively demonised in Plato’s Dialogues as ‘sophists’, appeared so insulting to citizen Socrates, because they dared to alienate aspects of this leisured existence (e.g. the capacity for articulate reasoning) and repackage them as techniques that might be purchased on demand from an expert – that is, a sophist. In effect, the sophists cleverly tried to universalise their own alien status, taking full advantage of the strong analogy that Athenians saw between the governance of the self and the polis. Unfortunately, Plato, the original spin doctor, immortalised Socrates’ laboured and hyperbolic rearguard response to these sly and partially successful attempts at dislodging hereditary privilege...

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	Q Science > Q Science (General) H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Science, Expertise, Ability
Journal or Publication Title:	Spontaneous Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science
Publisher:	University of Toronto
ISSN:	1913-0465
Official Date:	2007
Dates:	Date Event 2007 Published
Volume:	Vol.1
Number:	No.1
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
References:	Collins, Harry. 2004. Gravity’s shadow. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Collins, Harry and Robert Evans. 2002. The third wave of science studies: studies of expertise and experience. Social Studies of Science 32(2): 235‐296. Drahos, Peter. 1995. Information feudalism in the information society. The Information Society 11: 209‐222. Fuller, Steve. 2000. Thomas Kuhn: A philosophical history for our times. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fuller, Steve. 2007. New frontiers in Science and Technology Studies. Cambridge UK: Polity Press. Galison, Peter. 2004. Specific Theory. Critical Inquiry 30: 379‐83. Kitcher, Philip. 1993. The advancement of science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Latour, Bruno. 1993. We have never been modern. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Lyotard, Jean‐François. 1983. The postmodern condition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. MacKenzie, Donald. 2006. An engine, not a camera: How financial models shape markets. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. Putnam, Hilary. 1979. Mind, language and reality. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press. Romanell, Patrick. 1984. John Locke and medicine. Buffalo NY: Prometheus. Sharrock, W. W. 1974. On owning knowledge. In Ethnomethodology, ed. Roy Turner, 45‐53. Harmondsworth UK: Penguin.
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/481

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