3,801 works, 471 books, 3,267 articles, 60 other works, 3 awaiting classification, 150 years of economic thought. Each one summarized and searchable, with cited passages inside.
Citizens must judge claims whose technical foundations they cannot fully master. Alfred Schutz’s essay locates this difficulty between specialized expertise and the practical recipes that ordinarily let people get on with their lives. His distinctive question is not simply how much we know, but how we decide what deserves attention—and what happens when other people’s purposes make unfamiliar matters consequential for us. The expert, the everyday actor, and the would-be informed citizen are attitudes one person can adopt in different domains, not separate social classes. By examining both the perspectives of informants and the authority conferred by group approval, Schutz gives readers a precise distinction between knowledge received from others and knowledge warranted merely by social acceptance. His account makes informed judgment a task of scrutinizing relevance as well as evidence.