Friday, January 09, 2004

Metacommunication

It is hard to deploy knowledge without at the same time implying some claim over this knowledge.

The stance of expertise always implies that we can (should) trust some body of knowledge, and therefore also trust the bearer of this knowledge.

But where does this knowledge come from? One source of knowledge is what is sometimes called Ex Cathedra. This corresponds to authority/hierarchical trust. But we may prefer to rely on other sources of knowledge.