Experts and Consensus in Social Science

ISBN-13: 9783319085500 / Angielski / Twarda / 2014 / 305 str.

Carlo Martini; Marcel Boumans

Opis

This book brings together the research of philosophers, sociologists, and social scientists. It examines those areas of scientific practice where reliance on the subjective judgment of experts and practitioners is the main source of useful knowledge to address, and, possibly, bring solutions to social problems. A common phenomenon in applications of science is that objective evidence does not point to a single answer, or solution, to a problem. Reliance on subjective judgment, then, becomes necessary, despite the known fact that hunches, even those of putative experts, often provide information that is not very accurate, and that experts are prone to fallacies and biases. The book looks at how experts reach consensus in the social sciences, and which experts are relevant to which problems. It aims to answer many questions, the main one being: Can we start building a normative theory of expertise on the basis of the evidence that social scientists, sociologists and philosophers have uncovered?

Spis treści

Table of Contents.- Preface.- Chapter 1: Introduction: Experts and Consensus in Social Science; Marcel Boumans and Carlo Martini.- SECTION 1: Consensus in Practice.- Chapter 2:

The institutional economics of stakeholder consultation; how experts can contribute to reduce the costs of reaching compromise agreements; Frank A.G. den Butter and Sjoerd A. ten Wolde.- Chapter 3: Model-Based Consensus; Marcel Boumans.- Chapter 4:    Explicating ways of consensus-making in science and society: distinguishing the academic, the interface and the meta-consensus; Laszlo Kosolosky and Jeroen Van Bouwel.- SECTION 2: Frameworks of Consensus.- Chapter 5: Judgments About the Relevance of Evidence in the Context of Peer Disagreements and Practical Rationality; Amir Konigsberg.- Seeking consensus in the social sciences; Carlo Martini.-         Chapter 7: Struggling Over the Soul of Economics: Objectivity versus Expertise: Julian Reiss.- SECTION 3: Attributing Standards of Expertise.- Chapter 8: Epistemology as a Social Science: Applying the Neyman-Rubin Model to Explain Expert Beliefs; Aviezer Tucker.- Chapter 9: The Expert Economist in Times of Uncertainty; Maria Jimenez-Buedo.- Chapter 10: Validating Expert Judgment with the Classical Model; Roger M. Cooke.- Chapter 11:The Truth About Accuracy; F. Buekens and F. Truyen.- SECTION 4: The Democratic Dimension.- Chapter 12: Expert Advisers: Why Economic Forecasters Can Be Useful Even When They are Wrong; Robert Evans.- Chapter 13: The Role of Experts in the Condominium Model as Republican (Re-) Solution of Social, Economic, and Political Problems.- Chapter 14: Private Epistemic Virtue, Public Vices: Moral Responsibility in the Policy Sciences; Merel Lefevere and Eric Schliesser.

O autorze

Marcel Boumans is Associate Professor and Co-director of the faculty research programme History and Methodology of Economics at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Blurb

This book brings together the research of philosophers and social scientists. It examines those areas of scientific practice where reliance on the subjective judgment of experts and practitioners is the main source of useful knowledge to address, and, possibly, bring solutions to social problems. A common phenomenon in applications of science is that objective evidence does not point to a single answer, or solution, to a problem. Reliance on subjective judgment, then, becomes necessary, despite the known fact that hunches, even those of putative experts, often provide information that is not very accurate, and that experts are prone to fallacies and biases. The book looks at how experts reach consensus in the social sciences, and which experts are relevant to which problems. This book offers the ingredients for building a normative theory of expertise on the basis of the evidence that social scientists and philosophers have uncovered.