The distinction between these three different types of expertise can be illustrated by imagining the experience of a social science researcher approaching a topic for the first time.
In this dichotomous formulation, knowledge exists either as codified rules and facts or as some intangible property of the body that performs the task.
This distinction forms the basis of the key debate about artificial intelligence research in which Hubert Dreyfus, starting from Heidegger argued that because computers don’t have bodies they can’t do what humans do and will not, therefore, succeed in becoming intelligent, no matter how sophisticated and detailed the knowledge base and rules with which they are programmed (see Dreyfus 1972).
Given that such interactions are by their very nature open-ended and context-dependent Collins argues that only a fully socialised intelligence will be able to respond appropriately to any of the new and potentially unknown sentences directed to it.
The link between these arguments, the embodiment debate and the idea of interactional expertise is the importance of natural language.
This is particularly common in research funding decisions, where the likelihood of an application being reviewed by non-specialists increases with the amount of money involved.
Whilst this kind of thinking is formally included in many training schemes, the idea of interactional expertise allows us to ask about the kind of experience that is needed in order for managers who lack the embodied experience of writing copy or working on a production line to understand what this is like for those that do fulfil these roles.
In art, design, science, technology, medicine and public policy many activities are undertaken by interdisciplinary teams.
In science and technology, these take the form of scientists and engineers from many different disciplines working together on a single project.
In the case of science, but in other areas too, the job of journalists is to render the specialist expertise of some esoteric group intelligible and relevant to ordinary folk.
In many cases, journalists do this by presenting ‘both sides of the argument’ in order to provide a balanced story and prevent accusations of bias.
This is fine in principle but difficult in practice, particularly for science, as it requires the journalist to make a judgement about how credible a scientific claim is and thus how it should be reported.