Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology Online

Extract

The problem of the role of experts in society may seem to be a topic marginal to the main concerns of sociology, but it is in fact deeply rooted in the sociological project itself. Sociologists and social thinkers have long been concerned with the problem of the role of knowledge in society. Certain Enlightenment thinkers, notably Turgot and Condorcet, believed that social progress depended on the advance of knowledge and the wider dispersion of knowledge in society. But Condorcet especially recognized that this idea had complex political implications. On the one hand, it required science, which for him included social science, to be supported by the state, yet retain independence or self-governance in order to advance without political interference. On the other hand, he recognized that social advance required that the most enlightened be the rulers, and that this conflicted with the ideas of democracy and equality.Condorcet's solution to this problem was education. But he also recognized that even the educated citizen would never be the equal of the scientist. Thus, his conception of the role of the expert in politics depended on the hope that a more educated citizenry would defer politically to the most enlightened, thus bringing about de facto expert rule through democratic means. Saint-Simon extended this reasoning, but it was made into a sociological system by Comte, and, ... log in or subscribe to read full text