On How Expertise Ascriptions Work

Abstract Expertise is often ascribed to persons who are considered exceptionally competent in a particular subject matter. In contrast to this traditional approach, the present paper introduces a contextual understanding of expertise ascriptions. More precisely, this paper introduces two different kinds of contextuality by advancing and advocating the thesis that expertise ascriptions are true if and only if their content within their context of use is true against standards in the context of assessment. This means that expertise ascriptions have indexical content and are also assessment-sensitive. On this basis, a definition of expertise will be developed which outlines a series of conditions for what it takes to be an expert.