expertise regarding the current state of knowledge in a particular
field and about what remains to be done. As one such expert ex-
plains, “I’m much more surefooted in my own field, where...Ican
make silver judgments, or more confident judgments, where...I’m
intimately familiar with the research topic.” Of course, there are
often disagreements about how much work is needed on a topic. A
political scientist addresses this question: “[A panelist] was saying,
‘There’s too much work on the welfare state.’ Frankly, I think he’s
wrong that there’s a bunch of stuff on the welfare state on the partic-
ular country she’s looking at. Even if you threw that part away, [the
proposal] is at the intersection of the “transitions to democracy” [lit-
erature] as well...Itspoketotwohuge, maybe the two biggest liter-
atures, in political science today.” Thus, determining scholarly sig-
nificance can depend on personal taste as well as on expertise. An
English scholar confirms this fact as he contrasts his own intellectual
inclinations with those of a friend who is a literary critic: “[My
friend] thinks cultural currents, trends, intellectual history, that’s
where the action is. The kind of stuff I do in my last book, where I
show how much is going on in simple words or paragraphs, he
thinks that’s just a kind of self-indulgence, like playing around.”
Determining significance is also a question of perspective, of the
Recognizing Various Kinds of Excellence / 177Table 5.6Number of panelists using each epistemological style, by
disciplinary cluster
Disciplinary cluster
Epistemological
style
Humanities History Social sciences
N% N% N % N%
Constructivist 4 28 4 29 3 14 11 22
Comprehensive 12 86 11 78 15 71 38 78
Positivist 0 0 3 23 11 57 14 29
Utilitarian 0 0 1 4 4 19 5 10
Total 14 14 21 49
Note:Since each interviewee may use more than one style, columns do not sum to 100
percent.