What is it to Be an Expert?
An expert is a knowledgeable specialist in some area. It may be contradictory to consider an expert in common knowledge although all things seem to be possible if the will is there to create such a link. An expert would be expected to know most things about their area of expertise. The term expert then is very closely linked to the possession of considerable knowledge within a specific knowledge domain. The knowledge possessed by an expert may go beyond knowledge within the domain and cover knowledge that would be seen to be background knowledge to the domain knowledge. For instance, if the area of expertise was in wine, then the expert may also know about the use of cork to stop bottles, about the manufacture of certain types of bottles and where bottle manufacture was situated in wine growing regions.
An expert’s knowledge comes from involvement in an area rather than simply reading about it or talking to someone about it. Experts will have met a wide variety of situations within a knowledge area and will have generalised and categorised these situations so that they can predict events in novel situations within the same knowledge area. Experts will have made mistakes as they have acquired their expertise. Memory of some of these mistakes will feature strongly in the development of a particular persons expertise. Mistakes are a powerful shaper of expertise.
It is interesting to ask whether an expert is considered to be a wise person. That is, is expertise the same as wisdom? Earlier we considered a pyramidal structure where knowledge was placed above information and wisdom placed above knowledge. I argued then that this relative placement of terms did little to assist in their definition. If we consider expertise to equate to knowledge then the structure would place wisdom above that. But what does it mean to place wisdom above expertise? Definitions relate the term expertise to knowledge very strongly. The term wisdom however is connected with the prudent use or making the right use of knowledge. Wisdom is about making judgements. So where does this leave expertise. An expert may be consulted when one requires a decision in a specific knowledge area. A wise person may be consulted when one requires guidance of a more general nature. It is often portrayed that a wise person may not give a direct answer but supply a more cryptic clue as to where the answer may lay. So an expert may be expected to provide an answer from a considerable knowledge reserve. This must involve more than a simple memory of information since it was stated earlier that an expert would generalise and be able to predict situations in novel events related to the knowledge area. This must mean that an expert is also expected to reason and conclude from evidence and knowledge. A wise person on the other hand, with the cryptic answer may also be attempting to help the seeker of the answer to learn a little more about the situation by encouraging them to think along certain lines. A wise person would still require knowledge however. Maybe the knowledge required by a wise person is not so great within any specific field when compared to the expert. However, the wise person may draw on knowledge of many fields to a lesser degree but may be able to use analogical reasoning to see general patterns that apply in many situations. Such generalisation may not be accessible to an expert because they specialise in one knowledge area. It must be noted here that the word generalisation has been used to cover sets of situations within a knowledge area in the case of an expert, but has also been used to cover situations across knowledge domains in the case of a wise person.
Can an expert also be a wise person and can a wise person be an expert?