Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T19:23:07.560Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

CHOOSING EXPERT STATISTICAL ADVICE: PRACTICAL COSTS AND EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2014

Javier González De Prado Salas  and
David Teira
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We discuss the role of practical costs in the epistemic justification of a novice choosing expert advice, taking as a case study the choice of an expert statistician by a lay politician. First, we refine Goldman's criteria for the assessment of this choice, showing how the costs of not being impartial impinge on the epistemic justification of the different actors involved in the choice. Then, drawing on two case studies, we discuss in which institutional setting the costs of partiality can play an epistemic role. This way we intend to show how the sociological explanation of the choice of experts can incorporate its epistemic justification.

Type
Articles
Information
Episteme , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 117 - 129
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Brian, E. 1994. La Mesure De L'etat: Administrateurs Et Géomètres Au Xviiie Siècle, L'évolution De L'humanité. Paris: A. Michel.Google Scholar
Burge, T. 1993. ‘Content Preservation.’ Philosophical Review, 102: 457–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, S. 1988. ‘How to Be a Fallibilist.’ Philosophical Perspectives, 2: 91–123.Google Scholar
DeRose, K. 1992. ‘Contextualism and Knowledge Attributions.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 52: 913–29.Google Scholar
DeRose, K. 1999. ‘Contextualism: An Explanation and Defense.’ In Greco, J. and Sosa, E. (eds), The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, pp. 185–203. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Foley, R. 1994. ‘Egoism in Epistemology.’ In Schmitt, F. (ed.), Socializing Epistemology, pp. 53–74. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. I. 2001. ‘Experts: Which Ones Should You Trust?’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 63: 85–110.Google Scholar
Hawthorne, J. 2004. Knowledge and Lotteries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
MacFarlane, J. 2011. ‘Relativism and Knowledge Attributions.’ In Bernecker, S. and Pritchard, D. (eds), Routledge Companion to Epistemology, pp. 536–44. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Porter, T. M. 1995. Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Selinger, E. and Crease, R. P. 2006. The Philosophy of Expertise. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Stanley, J. 2005. Knowledge and Practical Interests, Lines of Thought. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Teira, D. 2013a. ‘On the Impartiality of British Trials.’ Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 44: 412–18.Google Scholar
Teira, D. 2013b. ‘A Contractarian Solution to the Experimenter's Regress.’ Philosophy of Science, 80: 709–20.Google Scholar