Expert Failure

Expert Failure
Author: Roger Koppl
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2018-02-08
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107138469

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.

Experts and Epistemic Monopolies

Experts and Epistemic Monopolies
Author: Roger Koppl
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2012-10-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 178190216X

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.

The Philosophy of Expertise

The Philosophy of Expertise
Author: Evan Selinger
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 438
Release: 2006
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780231136440

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 Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics

The Oxford Handbook of Austrian Economics
Author: Peter J. Boettke
Publisher:
Total Pages: 833
Release: 2015
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0199811768

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.

The Politics of Expertise

The Politics of Expertise
Author: Stephen P. Turner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2013-11-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 113464423X

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

Enough of Experts
Author: Cara Reed
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2023-05-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3110734915

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.

How to Organize and Run a Failure Investigation

How to Organize and Run a Failure Investigation
Author: Daniel P. Dennies
Publisher: ASM International
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2005
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1615030484

Learning the proper steps for organizing a failure investigation ensures success. Failure investigations cross company functional boundaries and are an integral component of any design or manufacturing business operation. Well-organized and professionally conducted investigations are essential for solving manufacturing problems and assisting in redesigns. This book outlines a proven systematic approach to failure investigation. It explains the relationship between various failure sources (corrosion, for example) and the organization and conduct of the investigation. It provides a learning platform for engineers from all disciplines: materials, design, manufacturing, quality, and management. The examples in this book focus on the definition of and requirements for a professionally performed failure analysis of a physical object or structure. However, many of the concepts have much greater utility than for investigating the failure of physical objects. For example, the book provides guidance in areas such as learning how to define objectives, negotiating the scope of investigation, examining the physical evidence, and applying general problem-solving techniques.

The Death of Expertise

The Death of Expertise
Author: Tom Nichols
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2017-02-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0190469439

Technology and increasing levels of education have exposed people to more information than ever before. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism. Tom Nichols' The Death of Expertise shows how this rejection of experts has occurred: the openness of the internet, the emergence of a customer satisfaction model in higher education, and the transformation of the news industry into a 24-hour entertainment machine, among other reasons. Paradoxically, the increasingly democratic dissemination of information, rather than producing an educated public, has instead created an army of ill-informed and angry citizens who denounce intellectual achievement. When ordinary citizens believe that no one knows more than anyone else, democratic institutions themselves are in danger of falling either to populism or to technocracy or, in the worst case, a combination of both. An update to the 2017breakout hit, the paperback edition of The Death of Expertise provides a new foreword to cover the alarming exacerbation of these trends in the aftermath of Donald Trump's election. Judging from events on the ground since it first published, The Death of Expertise issues a warning about the stability and survival of modern democracy in the Information Age that is even more important today.