Power and knowledge. The relationship between two kinds of uncertainty

The old question about the relationship between knowledge and power, which goes back to the Platonic theory of the philosopher-king, has been translated in contemporary times into two figures that would represent the type of knowledge that should guide politics. The right-wing version is that of the expert; the left-wing version is that of the intellectual. The expert embodies the so-called superiority of science, and would be the advocate of objectivity. The intellectual claims moral superiority and, rather than objectivity, offers critical, committed knowledge. These two figures are two versions of the same model, and in this coincidence lies its profound anachronism: the model of " speaking truth to power " (Wildavsky), as if experts and intellectuals were beyond the uncertainty of mortals, a genre to which even politicians belong. I admit that this is a bit of a simplification, but it may help us to understand why the model of knowledge that politics should only obey is a thing of the past, and no longer corresponds to the complex relations between knowledge and power that exist in our societies. Today, we need to think differently about the conditions under which political ideas can be brought to bear on the political process.

In the knowledge society, knowledge has become not only an element of economic productivity, but also of growing importance for the social legitimization of political decisions. Scientific reports, studies and expert commissions are part of our daily political and social landscape. It is also certain that knowledge transfer is a task that needs to be developed. But if we are to understand how knowledge and power are currently articulated, we need to realize that knowledge has changed status, and that it is no longer surrounded by its traditional signs of authority, but that 1) it is less and less the exclusive product of experts and more and more the result of a social construction, and that 2) it has a greater awareness of its own limitations and of the fact that it is inevitably accompanied by a growing non-knowledge. The knowledge required for democratic governance is now part of this new context.

The conditions under which politics is currently practiced can be summed up by saying that facts are uncertain, values are disputed, what is at stake is important and decisions are urgent (Ravetz). The problems generated by risk are redefining the boundaries between science, politics and public opinion. Disagreement among experts, differing scientific estimates of risk and potentially threatening innovations have all contributed to calling into question the image of science as a source of objective, reliable and universally valid knowledge. In fact, science not only increases knowledge, it also increases society's uncertainty and lack of knowledge. So it's time to say goodbye to science as the objective, indisputable basis of politics.

When it comes to thinking about the relationship between knowledge and power, we need to be aware that neither knows so much nor can know so much. Both can console themselves with the loss of their former privileges, and share the same uncertainty, in the form of theoretical perplexity in the former case, and vertigo in the face of the contingency of decision in the latter. What privilege has power lost? The prerogative of not having to learn, and of limiting itself to command. And what privilege has knowledge lost? It has lost the very security and self-evidence that spared it any need for legitimization; its social inaccuracy is now more visible than ever. Hence the shift in the problem: how can secure knowledge and sovereign power be made compatible, and how can they be articulated so as to compensate for their weakness, and together combat the growing complexity of the world?