An Epistemic Theory of Democracy
An Epistemic Theory of Democracy

Author: Robert E. Goodin

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 0198823452

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Democracy has many attractive features. Among them is its tendency to track the truth, at least under certain idealized assumptions. That basic result has been known since 1785, when Condorcet published his famous jury theorem. But that theorem has typically been dismissed as little more than a mathematical curiosity, with assumptions too restrictive for it to apply to the real world. In An Epistemic Theory of Democracy, Goodin and Spiekermann propose different ways of interpreting voter independence and competence to make jury theorems more generally applicable. They go on to assess a wide range of familiar political practices and alternative institutional arrangements, to determine what constellation of them might most fully exploit the truth-tracking potential of majoritarian democracy. The book closes with a discussion of how epistemic democracy might be undermined, using as case studies the Trump and Brexit campaigns.

Knowing Democracy – A Pragmatist Account of the Epistemic Dimension in Democratic Politics
Knowing Democracy – A Pragmatist Account of the Epistemic Dimension in Democratic Politics

Author: Michael I. Räber

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-10-06

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 3030532585

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.

Political Epistemology
Political Epistemology

Author: Elizabeth Edenberg

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 0192893335

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first edited collection to explore one of the most rapidly growing area of philosophy: political epistemology. The volume brings together leading philosophers to explore ways in which the analytic and conceptual tools of epistemology bear on political philosophy--and vice versa.

Framing Democracy
Framing Democracy

Author: Jamie Terence Kelly

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2012-09-16

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 1400845548

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The past thirty years have seen a surge of empirical research into political decision making and the influence of framing effects--the phenomenon that occurs when different but equivalent presentations of a decision problem elicit different judgments or preferences. During the same period, political philosophers have become increasingly interested in democratic theory, particularly in deliberative theories of democracy. Unfortunately, the empirical and philosophical studies of democracy have largely proceeded in isolation from each other. As a result, philosophical treatments of democracy have overlooked recent developments in psychology, while the empirical study of framing effects has ignored much contemporary work in political philosophy. In Framing Democracy, Jamie Terence Kelly bridges this divide by explaining the relevance of framing effects for normative theories of democracy. Employing a behavioral approach, Kelly argues for rejecting the rational actor model of decision making and replacing it with an understanding of choice imported from psychology and social science. After surveying the wide array of theories that go under the name of democratic theory, he argues that a behavioral approach enables a focus on three important concerns: moral reasons for endorsing democracy, feasibility considerations governing particular theories, and implications for institutional design. Finally, Kelly assesses a number of methods for addressing framing effects, including proposals to increase the amount of political speech, mechanisms designed to insulate democratic outcomes from flawed decision making, and programs of public education. The first book to develop a behavioral theory of democracy, Framing Democracy has important insights for democratic theory, the social scientific understanding of political decision making, economics, and legal theory.

Epistemic Democracy and Political Legitimacy
Epistemic Democracy and Political Legitimacy

Author: Ivan Cerovac

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 2021-05-07

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 9783030446048

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This compelling new book explores whether the ability of democratic procedures to produce correct outcomes increases the legitimacy of such political decisions. Mapping and critically engaging with the main theories of epistemic democracy, it additionally evaluates arguments for different democratic decision-making procedures related to aggregative and deliberative democracy. Addressing both positions that are too epistemic, such as Epistrocracy and Scholocracy, as well as those that are not epistemic enough, such as Pure Epistemic Proceduralism and Pragmatist Deliberative Democracy, Cerovac builds an innovative structure that can be used to bring order to numerous accounts of epistemic democracy. Introducing an appropriate account of epistemic democracy, Cerovac proceeds to analyse whether such epistemic value is better achieved through aggregative or deliberative procedures. Drawing particularly on the work of David Estlund, and including a discussion on the implementation of the epistemic ideal to real world politics, this is a fascinating read for all those interested in democratic decision-making.

Truth and Democracy
Truth and Democracy

Author: Jeremy Elkins

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2012-01-31

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 0812206223

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Political theorists Jeremy Elkins and Andrew Norris observe that American political culture is deeply ambivalent about truth. On the one hand, voices on both the left and right make confident appeals to the truth of claims about the status of the market in public life and the role of scientific evidence and argument in public life, human rights, and even religion. On the other hand, there is considerable anxiety that such appeals threaten individualism and political plurality. This anxiety, Elkins and Norris contend, has perhaps been greatest in the humanities and in political theory, where many have responded by either rejecting or neglecting the whole topic of truth. The essays in this volume question whether democratic politics requires discussion of truth and, if so, how truth should matter to democratic politics. While individual essays approach the subject from different angles, the volume as a whole suggests that the character of our politics depends in part on what kinds of truthful inquiries it promotes and how it deals with various kinds of disputes about truth. The contributors to the volume, including prominent political and legal theorists, philosophers, and intellectual historians, argue that these are important political and not merely theoretical questions.

Democracy and Moral Conflict
Democracy and Moral Conflict

Author: Robert B. Talisse

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2009-09-10

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 0521513545

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

If confronted with a democratic result they regard as intolerable, should citizens revolt or pursue democratic means of social change?

The Epistemology of Resistance
The Epistemology of Resistance

Author: José Medina

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 0199929025

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book explores the epistemic side of racial and sexual oppression. It elucidates how social insensitivities and imposed silences prevent members of different groups from listening to each other.

Democratic Legitimacy
Democratic Legitimacy

Author: Fabienne Peter

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-01-13

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 113431924X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book offers a systematic treatment of democratic legitimacy, interpreted as a distinct normative concept. It defends the view that democratic legitimacy requires that decisions are made in a process that is politically and epistemically fair.

Democratic Reason
Democratic Reason

Author: Hélène Landemore

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-02-28

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 0691176396

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Individual decision making can often be wrong due to misinformation, impulses, or biases. Collective decision making, on the other hand, can be surprisingly accurate. In Democratic Reason, Hélène Landemore demonstrates that the very factors behind the superiority of collective decision making add up to a strong case for democracy. She shows that the processes and procedures of democratic decision making form a cognitive system that ensures that decisions taken by the many are more likely to be right than decisions taken by the few. Democracy as a form of government is therefore valuable not only because it is legitimate and just, but also because it is smart. Landemore considers how the argument plays out with respect to two main mechanisms of democratic politics: inclusive deliberation and majority rule. In deliberative settings, the truth-tracking properties of deliberation are enhanced more by inclusiveness than by individual competence. Landemore explores this idea in the contexts of representative democracy and the selection of representatives. She also discusses several models for the "wisdom of crowds" channeled by majority rule, examining the trade-offs between inclusiveness and individual competence in voting. When inclusive deliberation and majority rule are combined, they beat less inclusive methods, in which one person or a small group decide. Democratic Reason thus establishes the superiority of democracy as a way of making decisions for the common good.