Roger Koppl develops a theory of experts and expert failure, and illustrates his theory with wide-ranging examples, including that of state regulation of economic activity.

Under what conditions of supply and demand are experts likely to give us good advice? When is expert failure more likely? Do entrepreneurs challenge existing expertise? Are they experts themselves? This title brings a heterogeneous collection of thinkers, some "Austrian" and to engage the problem of experts.

From the use of expert testimony in the courtroom to the advice we rely on to solve key economic, political, and social problems, expertise is an essential part of our decision-making process. However, the extent to which experts can be trusted is a subject of persistent and contentious debate. The Philosophy of Expertise is the first collection to explore the fundamental philosophical issues surrounding these authorities and their expert knowledge. Part 1 considers the problems surrounding the issue of trust and deference; part 2 launches a phenomenological clarification of expertise that pinpoints the universal structures embodied in cognition and affect; and part 3 examines the consequences of the social and technical externalization of expertise. Contributors including Edward Said, Alvin Goldman, Peter Singer, Hubert Dreyfus, Julia Annas, Harry Collins, and Don Ihde draw on a number of intellectual approaches to explore the justification of expert authority, the potentially dangerous role of expertise in a liberal democratic society, how laypeople can critique experts, and the social and ideological character of expert advice. The contributors also discuss the reasoning process of judges and juries, the ancient Greek view of moral conduct, and the incorporation of experts into governmental bureaucracy. By honestly tackling the legitimacy and consistency of various positions, this volume sheds much-needed light on the theoretical dimensions of a controversial and pervasive practice. Contributors: Alvin I. Goldman, Don Ihde, Edward Said, Evan Selinger and John Mix, Evan Selinger and Robert P. Crease, H. M. Collins and Robert Evans, Hélène Mialet, Hubert Dreyfus, John Hardwig, Julia Annas, Paul Feyerabend, Peter Singer, Scott Brewer, Steve Fuller, Steven Turner

The Austrian School of Economics is an intellectual tradition in economics and political economy dating back to Carl Menger in the late-19th century. Menger stressed the subjective nature of value in the individual decision calculus. Individual choices are indeed made on the margin, but the evaluations of rank ordering of ends sought in the act of choice are subjective to individual chooser. For Menger, the economic calculus was about scarce means being deployed to pursue an individual's highest valued ends. The act of choice is guided by subjective assessments of the individual, and is open ended as the individual is constantly discovering what ends to pursue, and learning the most effective way to use the means available to satisfy those ends. This school of economic thinking spread outside of Austria to the rest of Europe and the United States in the early-20th century and continued to develop and gain followers, establishing itself as a major stream of heterodox economics. The Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics provides an overview of this school and its theories. The various contributions discussed in this book all reflect a tension between the Austrian School's orthodox argumentative structure (rational choice and invisible hand) and its addressing of a heterodox problem situations (uncertainty, differential knowledge, ceaseless change). The Austrian economists from the founders to today seek to derive the invisible hand theorem from the rational choice postulate via institutional analysis in a persistent and consistent manner. Scholars and students working in the field of History of Economic Thought, those following heterodox approaches, and those both familiar with the Austrian School or looking to learn more will find much to learn in this comprehensive volume.

This book collects case studies and theoretical papers on expertise, focusing on four major themes: legitimation, the aggregation of knowledge, the distribution of knowledge and the distribution of power. It focuses on the institutional means by which the distribution of knowledge and the distribution of power are connected, and how the problems of aggregating knowledge and legitimating it are solved by these structures. The radical novelty of this approach is that it places the traditional discussion of expertise in democracy into a much larger framework of knowledge and power relations, and in addition begins to raise the questions of epistemology that a serious account of these problems requires.

Enough of Experts: Expert Authority in Crisis analyses the challenges and threats to expert authority in neoliberal political economies and societies. It focuses upon the deep-seated political, economic, social and cultural transformations which have fundamentally destabilized and eroded the institutional foundations of expert authority over more than four decades. The book critically assesses the orthodox or ‘received’ model of expert authority as it has come under escalating pressures from a nexus of ideological, organizational, technological and cultural changes that have radically weakened the former’s core ‘institutional logic’ and practical efficacy. It also looks forward to a range of ‘expert futures’ in which expert groups and organizations decline in power and status as their prevalence proliferates to a stage where they become ubiquitous in neoliberal regimes. Finally, the book presents an alternative reflexive model of expert authority and governance that is grounded in the ‘dynamics of contestation and trust’ and stands in direct contrast to the orthodox, rational model.

In 2008, as the price of oil surged above $140 a barrel, experts said it would soon hit $200; a few months later it plunged to $30. In 1967, they said the USSR would have one of the fastest-growing economies in the year 2000; in 2000, the USSR did not exist. In 1911, it was pronounced that there would be no more wars in Europe; we all know how that turned out. Face it, experts are about as accurate as dart-throwing monkeys. And yet every day we ask them to predict the future — everything from the weather to the likelihood of a catastrophic terrorist attack. Future Babble is the first book to examine this phenomenon, showing why our brains yearn for certainty about the future, why we are attracted to those who predict it confidently, and why it’s so easy for us to ignore the trail of outrageously wrong forecasts. In this fast-paced, example-packed, sometimes darkly hilarious book, journalist Dan Gardner shows how seminal research by UC Berkeley professor Philip Tetlock proved that pundits who are more famous are less accurate — and the average expert is no more accurate than a flipped coin. Gardner also draws on current research in cognitive psychology, political science, and behavioral economics to discover something quite reassuring: The future is always uncertain, but the end is not always near.