scholarly journals Deliberative epistemic instrumentalism, or something near enough

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-11
Author(s):  
Ivan Mladenovic
Keyword(s):  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Epistemic Values ◽  
The Public ◽  
Epistemic Virtues ◽  
Epistemic Instrumentalism

In her book Democracy and Truth: The Conflict between Political and Epistemic Virtues, Snjezana Prijic Samarzija advocates a stance that not only political, but also epistemic values are necessary for justification of democracy. Specifically, she mounts defense for one particular type of public deliberation on epistemic grounds. In this paper, I will discuss the following issue: What connects this type of public deliberation to the wider context of (epistemic) justification of democracy? I will attempt to explain why Prijic Samarzija?s stance can be understood as a version of deliberative epistemic instrumentalism and to discuss the role played by the public deliberation within this framework.

scholarly journals The epistemology of democracy: The epistemic virtues of democracy

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-70
Author(s):  
Snjezana Prijic-Samarzija
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social System ◽  
Epistemic Justification ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
The Political ◽  
Epistemic Values ◽  
Epistemic Virtues ◽  
Political Justification

The new and vibrant field of the epistemology of democracy, or the inquiry about the epistemic justification of democracy as a social system of procedures, institutions, and practices, as a cross-disciplinary endeavour, necessarily encounters both epistemologists and political philosophers. Despite possible complaints that this kind of discussion is either insufficiently epistemological or insufficiently political, my approach explicitly aims to harmonize the political and epistemic justification of democracy. In this article, I tackle some fundamental issues concerning the nature of the epistemic justification of democracy and the best theoretical framework for harmonizing political and epistemic values. I also inquire whether the proposed division of epistemic labour and the inclusion of experts can indeed improve the epistemic quality of decision-making without jeopardizing political justification. More specifically, I argue in favour of three theses. First, not only democratic procedures but also the outcomes of democracy, as a social system, need to be epistemically virtuous. Second, democracy?s epistemic virtues are more than just a tool for achieving political goals. Third, an appropriate division of epistemic labour has to overcome the limitations of both individual and collective intelligence.

The Priority of Public Reasons and Religious Forms of Life in Constitutional Democracies

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Political Deliberation ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Right ◽  
Mutual Accountability

In this essay I address the difficult question of how citizens with conflicting religious and secular views can fulfill the democratic obligation of justifying the imposition of coercive policies to others with reasons that they can also accept. After discussing the difficulties of proposals that either exclude religious beliefs from public deliberation or include them without any restrictions, I argue instead for a policy of mutual accountability that imposes the same deliberative rights and obligations on all democratic citizens. The main advantage of this proposal is that it recognizes the right of all democratic citizens to adopt their own cognitive stance (whether religious or secular) in political deliberation in the public sphere without giving up on the democratic obligation to provide reasons acceptable to everyone to justify coercive policies with which all citizens must comply.

British Public Television Police Drama: an Ordo-Baroque Template for European Complex Governance (with a Case Study of the BBC Meta-Police Series Line of Duty)

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Caius Dobrescu
Keyword(s):  
Control Parameter ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Public Television ◽  
The Public ◽  
Multi Level ◽  
Police Drama ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Political Imaginary ◽  
Logical Extension

In this article, Elizabethan and Jacobean Baroque drama is considered as a comparative, structuring reference and as a control parameter for understanding contemporary British public television police drama as a genre in its own right. The argument for its autonomy and specificity lies not primarily with formal arguments, but with its intimate connection with representations on government and governance, as practices and world-models aimed at the management of complexity. Starting from the above, I premise that the public police drama format is highly relevant for Europe at large, not only as a fictional means of comprehending complex government, but as an emerging forum of actual public deliberation on the means and goals of complex government. The logical extension of the current study would be a future analysis of the manner in which the suggested template of police drama was absorbed in the continental television and government culture. For the moment the argument is restricted to pointing out the premises offered by the British original format for a poetics of complex order and of multi-level governance essential for the configuration of a European political imaginary.

An Epistemic Defense of Democracy: David Estlund's Democratic Authority

Episteme ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Public Reason ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
Epistemic Values ◽  
The Public ◽  
Democratic Authority ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
Better Than

ABSTRACTIn Democratic Authority, David Estlund (2008) presents a major new defense of democracy, called epistemic proceduralism. The theory claims that democracy exercises legitimate authority in virtue of possessing a modest epistemic power: its decisions are the product of procedures that tend to produce just laws at a better than chance rate, and better than any other type of government that is justifiable within the terms of public reason. The balance Estlund strikes between epistemic and non-epistemic justifications of democracy is open to question, both for its neglect of the roles of non-epistemic values of equality and collective autonomy in democracy, and for the ways his use of the public reason standard overshadows empirically based epistemic arguments for democracy. Nevertheless, Estlund presents telling critiques of rival theories and develops a sophisticated alternative that illuminates some central normative features of democracy.

POLITICAL DELIBERATION UNDER CONDITIONS OF DECEPTION: THE CASE OF BREXIT

Think ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (44) ◽  
pp. 7-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Grace Chappell
Keyword(s):  
Public Debate ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Legal Remedy ◽  
Political Deliberation ◽  
The Eu

Individual deliberations under conditions of serious deception are generally agreed to be invalidated by that deception. So political deliberations under conditions of serious deception should also be agreed to be invalidated. The UK’s referendum on membership of the EU was a flawed process of public deliberation precisely for this reason – that the public debate about the referendum involved serious deception. I raise the question what should be done about such public deceptions, and suggest a restrained form of legal remedy.

scholarly journals New Trouble For Deliberative Democracy

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 107-123
Author(s):  
Robert Talisse
Keyword(s):  
Deliberative Democracy ◽  
Citizen Participation ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
Political Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Democratic Practice

In the past two decades, democratic political practice has taken a deliberative turn. That is, contemporary democratic politics has become increasingly focused on facilitating citizen participation in the public exchange of reasons. Although the deliberative turn in democratic practice is in several respects welcome, the technological and communicative advances that have facilitated it also make possible new kinds of deliberative democratic pathology. This essay calls attention to and examines new epistemological troubles for public deliberation enacted under contemporary conditions. Drawing from a lesson offered by Lyn Sanders two decades ago, the paper raises the concern that the deliberative turn in democratic practice has counter-democratic effects.

scholarly journals Cities of "others" : public space and everyday practices

2009 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Vaiou ◽  
A. Kalandides
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Public Space ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Everyday Practices ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Material Space ◽  
A Site ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
The City

Abstract. This paper deals with the concept of «public space». It works with the ambiguities embedded therein, contrasting material space/s – the streets, squares, parks, public buildings of the city – with the other spaces created through the functions and institutions of the «public sphere» as a site of public deliberation. Focussing on the ambiguities of the concept allow questions of access, interaction, participation, cultural and symbolic rights of passage to be posed. Public space is approached here as constituted through the practices of everyday life: it is produced and constantly contested, reflecting – among other things – relations of power. Differences in gender, ethnicity or sexuality often lead to binary thinking, such as inside/outside, inclusion/exclusion, local/stranger. The way that such categories intertwine in everyday life, though, unsettle easy categorisations and force a questioning of strict lines of division. It is in this context that a proposal is made to discuss the city of «others», drawing from research examples which cross over such lines.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document