Philosophers of science are increasingly arguing for and addressing the need to do work that is socially and scientifically engaged. However, we currently lack well-developed frameworks for thinking about how we should engage other expert communities and what the epistemic benefits are of doing so. In this paper, I draw on Collins and Evans' concept of ‘interactional expertise’ – the ability to speak the language of a discipline in the absence of an ability to practice – to consider the epistemic (...) benefits that can arise when philosophers engage scientific communities. As Collins and Evans argue, becoming an interactional expert requires that one ‘hang out’ with members of the relevant expert community in order to learn crucial tacit knowledge needed to speak the language. Building on this work, I argue that acquiring interactional expertise not only leads to linguistic fluency, but it also confers several ‘socio-epistemic’ benefits such as the opportunity to cultivate trust with scientific communities. These benefits can improve philosophical work and facilitate the broader uptake of philosophers' ideas, enabling philosophers to meet a variety of epistemic goals. As a result, having at least some philosophers of science acquire interactional expertise via engagement will likely enhance the diversity of epistemic capacities for philosophy of science as a whole. For some philosophers of science, moreover, the socio-epistemic benefits identified here may be more important than the ability to speak the language of a discipline, suggesting the need for a broader analysis of interactional expertise, which this paper also advances. (shrink)

The concept of interactional expertise – characterized by sociologists Harry Collins and Robert Evans as the ability to speak the language of a discipline without the corresponding ability to practice – can serve as a powerful way of breaking down expert/non-expert dichotomies and providing a role for new voices in specialist communities. However, in spite of the vast uptake of this concept and its potential to fruitfully address many important issues related to scientific expertise, there has been surprisingly little critical (...) analysis of it. We seek to remedy this situation by considering potential benefits of interactional expertise and the ways in which the current conception can – and cannot – realize those benefits. In particular, we argue that interactional expertise hasn’t reached its full potential for addressing who ought to be involved in scientific research and decision-making, largely owing to an unnecessarily restrictive way of operationalizing the concept. In its place, we offer a broader, more pluralistic account of interactional expertise – one that is in line with the original spirit of the concept, but also captures the diversity that we see as being an important aspect of interactional experts and the value they can bring to the table. (shrink)