Affiliation:
1. African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science
Abstract
Abstract
What would happen to our notion of expertise if we took decolonial theorists’ insight that former colonial subjects continue to be epistemically marginalised? We should revise our accounts of expertise, I argue in this paper. The argument has three steps. First, I show that the experts of the epistemically marginalised (e.g. traditional healers) are indeed experts: they meet core conditions for responsibly placed trust in scientific experts. Second, I argue that existing accounts of expertise cannot accommodate this claim. Finally, I sketch a view of expertise (‘communitarian functionalism’) that can. If the argument works, it helps us make progress both in the epistemology of expertise and with the project of epistemic decolonisation.
Publisher
Oxford University PressOxford
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