Kant on Epistemic Authority and Autonomy

There is a disanalogy between democratic ideals and epistemic norms. In democratic theory, all citizens are equal, and they should all be respected as independent voters, each in the formation of their own opinions. From an epistemic point of view, however, inequality (e.g., between experts and lay people) is inevitable, and it is often rational for lay people to defer to experts and epistemic authorities. The goal of the conference is to explore the tension between democratic ideals and epistemic norms from a Kantian perspective. How should we understand the ideals of enlightenment in a society where there is a division of epistemic labor and where knowledge is allocated unequally among subjects? How can one be epistemically autonomous in the sense of using one’s own reason while relying on experts and epistemic authorities in achieving one’s epistemic goals?