Glances

Abstract

As long as an “expert”—an art critic, a biologist, a physicist—deals with his own field of research, we willingly note the facts he informs us of and the opinions he expresses. As soon as the same “expert” aspires to discover some links between such facts or opinions and more general conceptions, our natural tendency is to doubt his statements, for we consider—and, admittedly, rightly so—that on going beyond his own particular field, he loses his special qualifications. It is therefore with an a priori skeptical eye that we see him entering a domain of thought in which we believe we are just as learned and wise as he is, and perhaps even wiser! For is there not an appreciable chance that his specialized studies blind him in the field of general ideas? Moreover, does not experience show that on general problems the conceptions of the experts are more often than not both short-sighted and oversimple?