For better or worse, democracy and epistemology are intertwined. For one thing, politics is partly a matter of gathering, assessing, and applying information. And this can be done responsibly or incompetently. At least since Plato, a leading critique of democracy has focused on the ignorance of ordinary citizens. Historically, this kind of critique has supplied the basis for several nondemocratic proposals. Yet it has also worked in the background of a range of views within democratic theory. Among these are views that have relied on markets as mechanisms for sharing and distributing information.
But there are hazards to market-based thinking about democracy. In Citizen Knowledge: Markets, Experts, and the Infrastructure of Democracy (Oxford UP, 2023), Lisa Herzog explores three conceptually distinct sites where democracy interfaces with epistemology: markets, expert communities, and public deliberation. The result is an integrated political epistemology for democracy.
Robert Talisse is the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/philosophy
Stephanie Ruphy, “Scientific Pluralism Reconsidered: A New Approach to the (Dis)unity of Science (U. Pittsburgh Press, 2017)
Ryan Muldoon, “Social Contract Theory for a Diverse World: Beyond Tolerance” (Routledge, 2017)
Carl Gillett, “Reduction and Emergence in Science and Philosophy” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
Fred Feldman, “Distributive Justice: Getting What We Deserve from Our Country” (Oxford UP, 2016)
Jennifer Greenwood, “Becoming Human: The Ontogenesis, Metaphysics, and Expression of Human Emotionality” (MIT, 2016)
Elizabeth Barnes, “The Minority Body: A Theory of Disability” (Oxford UP, 2016)
Andy Clark, “Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and Embodied Mind” (Oxford UP, 2016)
William H. Shaw, “Utilitarianism and the Ethics of War” (Routledge, 2016)
Paul C. Taylor, “Black is Beautiful: A Philosophy of Black Aesthetics” (Wiley Blackwell, 2016)
A. John Simmons, “Boundaries of Authority” (Oxford UP, 2016)
J.D. Trout, “Wondrous Truths: The Improbable Triumph of Modern Science” (Oxford UP, 2016)
Kenneth Schaffner, “Behaving: What’s Genetic, What’s Not, and Why Should We Care?” (Oxford UP, 2016)
Martha Nussbaum, “Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice” (Oxford UP, 2016)
Silvia Jonas, “Ineffability and Its Metaphysics: The Unspeakable in Art, Religion, and Philosophy” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)
Diana Heney, “Toward a Pragmatist Metaethics” (Routledge, 2016)
Arianna Betti, “Against Facts” (MIT Press, 2015)
Mark Navin, “Values and Vaccine Refusal: Hard Questions in Epistemology, Ethics, and Health Care” (Routledge, 2016)
Julian Reiss, “Causation, Evidence and Inference” (Routledge, 2015)
David Shoemaker, “Responsibility from the Margins” (Oxford UP, 2015)
Rachel McKinnon, “The Norms of Assertion: Truth, Lies, and Warrant” (Palgrave McMillan, 2015)
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
New Books in Sociology
New Books in Psychoanalysis
New Books in Anthropology
New Books in African American Studies
New Books in Islamic Studies