Cognitive Authority

"Patrick Wilson (1983) developed the cognitive authority theory from social epistemology in his book, Second-hand Knowledge: An Inquiry into Cognitive Authority. The fundamental concept of Wilson’s cognitive authority is that people construct knowledge in two different ways: based on their first-hand experience or on what they have learned second-hand from others. What people learn first-hand depends on the stock of ideas they bring to the interpretation and understanding of their encounters with the world. People primarily depend on others for ideas as well as for information outside the range of direct experience. Much of what they think of the world is what they have gained second-hand.

Wilson (1983) argues that all that people know of the world beyond the narrow range of their own lives is what others have told them. However, people do not count all hearsay as equally reliable; only those who are deemed to “know what they are talking about” become cognitive authorities. Wilson coined the term cognitive authority to explain the kind of authority that influences thoughts that people would consciously recognize being proper. Cognitive authority differs from administrative authority or the authority vented in a hierarchical position." (Rieh, 2005).