ABSTRACT In contemporary societies, governance is becoming governance by experts or under expert advice. This paper offers a survey of the basic conceptual schema that underlies some legal and political uses of knowledge, which has been traditionally based on a two-fold principle of distribution of epistemic labour between public officials and experts. Building on the example of the European system of comitology and, particularly, on the European experiences in the field of nanotechnology regulation, where expert advice has proved to be particularly controversial, I will argue that the principal-agent logic that has been conventionally placed at the core of the relationship between public authorities and experts must be enhanced or specified. Facing situations of qualified uncertainty, when epistemic privilege of experts tends to decline because of the absence of conclusive evidence, the standard division of epistemic labour becomes blurred and crucial questions of (epistemic) justice come to the fore. Moreover, I will show that, at that point, the demand for lay people participation becomes increasingly compelling. The underlying context of this discussion is the understanding that both politics of knowledge and politics of ignorance are already playing a crucial role in the governance of our increasingly ungovernable democracies.

中文翻译：

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实践权威和认知权威：礼让、专业知识和公众理解

摘要 在当代社会，治理正在成为专家或专家建议下的治理。本文提供了对知识的某些法律和政治使用基础的基本概念图式的调查，该图式传统上基于公职人员和专家之间认知劳动分配的双重原则。以欧洲委员会系统为例，特别是在纳米技术监管领域的欧洲经验的基础上，专家建议已被证明特别具有争议性，我将论证传统上置于必须加强或明确公共当局与专家之间关系的核心。面对合格不确定性的情况，当专家的认知特权由于缺乏确凿证据而趋于下降时，认知劳动的标准分工变得模糊，（认知）正义的关键问题就出现了。此外，我将表明，到那时，对非专业人士参与的需求变得越来越迫切。本次讨论的基本背景是这样一种理解，即知识政治和无知政治已经在我们日益难以治理的民主国家的治理中发挥着至关重要的作用。