Overview
- Explores the scope and limits of the concept of epistemic democracy and shows the relevance of a normative and aesthetic understanding of democratic judgments
- Establishes an original pragmatist conception of democratic judgment that blends the epistemic and the aesthetic aspects of the making of political judgments
- Brings together for the first time debates on epistemic democracy, aesthetic judgment and pragmatist social epistemology
- Focuses on a compelling topic within democratic theory and practice, as it is informed by an understanding of democratic theory in all its relevant aspects
Part of the book series: Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations (PPCE, volume 14)
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Table of contents (9 chapters)
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Front Matter
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A Pragmatist Theory of Democratic Political Judgment
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Front Matter
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Pragmatist Political Judgment and the Circumstances of Democratic Politics
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
- Epistemic Dimension in Democratic Politics
- Epistemic Performance of Democratic Decision- Making Procedures
- Democracy and Truth—A Problematic Relationship
- Pragmatist Epistemic Democracy
- Pragmatist Notion of Truth
- Peirce and Dewey on Truth
- Social Epistemology from a Pragmatist Perspective
- Pragmatist Social Epistemology
- Social Inquiry, Democracy and Political Judgment
- Social Inquiry as Democratic Praxis
- Epistemic Value of Diversity and Disagreement
- Epistemic Value of Diversity in Democratic Deliberations
- Deliberative Systems and Epistemic Quality
- Political Knowers in Democracy
- The (Nut)Case of Conspiracy Theories
- democracy
About this book
How can we justify democracy’s trust in the political judgments of ordinary people? In Knowing Democracy, Michael Räber situates this question between two dominant alternative paradigms of thinking about the reflective qualities of democratic life: on the one hand, recent epistemic theories of democracy, which are based on the assumption that political participation promotes truth, and, on the other hand, theories of political judgment that are indebted to Hannah Arendt’s aesthetic conception of political judgment. By foregrounding the concept of political judgment in democracies, the book shows that a democratic theory of political judgments based on John Dewey’s pragmatism can navigate the shortcomings of both these paradigms. While epistemic theories are overly and narrowly rationalistic and Arendtian theories are overly aesthetic, the neo-Deweyan conception of political judgment proposed in this book suggests a third path that combines the rationalist and the aesthetic elements of political conduct in a way that goes beyond a merely epistemic or a merely aesthetic conception of political judgment in democracy. The justification for democracy’s trust in ordinary people’s political judgments, Räber argues, resides in an egalitarian conception of democratic inquiry that blends the epistemic and the aesthetic aspects of the making of political judgments.
By offering a rigorous scholarly analysis of the epistemic and aesthetic foundations of democracy from a pragmatist perspective, Knowing Democracy contributes to the current debates in political epistemology and aesthetics and politics, both of which ask about the appropriate reflective and experiential circumstances of democratic politics. The book brings together for the first time debates on epistemic democracy, aesthetic judgment and those on pragmatist social epistemology, and establishes an original pragmatist conception of epistemic democracy.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Michael I. Räber is a post-doctoral visiting researcher at the Department of Political Science, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Zurich (Switzerland). His research has been mainly focused on theories of democracy (politics and aesthetics, deliberative theory and political epistemology), political pragmatism, philosophy of art, and the history of political thought.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Knowing Democracy – A Pragmatist Account of the Epistemic Dimension in Democratic Politics
Authors: Michael I. Räber
Series Title: Philosophy and Politics - Critical Explorations
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53258-1
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-53257-4Published: 07 October 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-53260-4Published: 08 October 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-53258-1Published: 06 October 2020
Series ISSN: 2352-8370
Series E-ISSN: 2352-8389
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 211
Number of Illustrations: 2 b/w illustrations
Topics: Political Philosophy, Political Theory, Pragmatism, Democracy, Epistemology, Social Philosophy