Abstract
Building on recent work in the sociology of intellectual interventions, the study of cultural boundaries of science, and the role of ideas in politics, the article develops a theory of public epistemologies as argumentative tools people use to support or oppose political positions. Two prominent public epistemologies that have recently crystallized in Italian politics are taken as illustrations, with special attention paid to the role of two academics (an economist and an immunologist) turned public intellectuals. The article argues that the rise of populism in Italy has contributed to unusual alignments between political and epistemological positions, which has made questions about science and expert knowledge much more relevant in contesting and supporting political decisions.
Highlights
Science and expertise have become central political categories in contemporary democratic societies
By focusing on recent Italian politics, I argue that political debates involving complex and technical issues reveal competing public epistemologies that have a certain degree of internal consistency
Complex, and relatively coherent but potentially unstable cultural schemes that define how one is to distinguish truth from falsity, what is the nature of science, what kind of people or institution can be trusted to provide reliable knowledge, and which describe in a sequential or plot-like form why ignorance and error exist in the world and what is to be done of them
Summary
Science and expertise have become central political categories in contemporary democratic societies. Science aversion is at times framed as a betrayal and at other times as simple indifference, but the key theme is similar: the country regularly ends up being administered by people with low intellectual capacities, who disdain experts and intellectuals, believe in conspiracy theories and other pseudo-scientific ideas, and prize football, motors, and sex parties over knowledge and culture The effects of this form of anti-intellectualism are catastrophic: measures are not taken to protect people from risks and uncertainties, to increase the efficiency of state services, or to discover new solutions to pressing social problems. This narrative has been enriched by concepts having a technical and scientific flavour, such as that of “functional illiteracy” (analfabetismo funzionale) or “return illiteracy” (analfabetismo di ritorno), generally presented as the condition of a person who can read but
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