An Epistemic Theory of Democracy

An Epistemic Theory of Democracy PDF Author: Robert E. Goodin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198823452
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 469

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Book Description
This book examines the Condorcet Jury Theorem and how its assumptions can be applicable to the real world. It will use the theorem to assess various familiar political practices and alternative institutional arrangements, revealing how best to take advantage of the truth-tracking potential of majoritarian democracy.

An Epistemic Theory of Democracy

An Epistemic Theory of Democracy PDF Author: Robert E. Goodin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198823452
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 469

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Book Description
This book examines the Condorcet Jury Theorem and how its assumptions can be applicable to the real world. It will use the theorem to assess various familiar political practices and alternative institutional arrangements, revealing how best to take advantage of the truth-tracking potential of majoritarian democracy.

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

Knowing Democracy – A Pragmatist Account of the Epistemic Dimension in Democratic Politics PDF Author: Michael I. Räber
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030532585
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
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.

An Epistemic Theory of Democracy

An Epistemic Theory of Democracy PDF Author: Robert E. Goodin
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192556479
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
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.

Epistemic Democracy and Political Legitimacy

Epistemic Democracy and Political Legitimacy PDF Author: Ivan Cerovac
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9783030446048
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
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.

Democratic Legitimacy

Democratic Legitimacy PDF Author: Fabienne Peter
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113431924X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 177

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Book Description
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.

A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy

A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy PDF Author: Robert B. Talisse
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135196400
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
In this book, Robert B. Talisse advances a series of pragmatic arguments against Deweyan democracy. Drawing upon the epistemology of the founder of pragmatism, Charles S. Peirce, Talisse develops a conception of democracy that is anti-Deweyan but nonetheless pragmatist. The result is a new pragmatist option in democratic theory.

Critical Elitism

Critical Elitism PDF Author: Alfred Moore
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107194520
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
This book re-imagines expert authority for an age of critical citizens, and shows how expertise can contribute in a deliberative system.

Framing Democracy

Framing Democracy PDF Author: Jamie Terence Kelly
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400845548
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
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.

Democratic Authority

Democratic Authority PDF Author: David Estlund
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400831547
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Democracy is not naturally plausible. Why turn such important matters over to masses of people who have no expertise? Many theories of democracy answer by appealing to the intrinsic value of democratic procedure, leaving aside whether it makes good decisions. In Democratic Authority, David Estlund offers a groundbreaking alternative based on the idea that democratic authority and legitimacy must depend partly on democracy's tendency to make good decisions. Just as with verdicts in jury trials, Estlund argues, the authority and legitimacy of a political decision does not depend on the particular decision being good or correct. But the "epistemic value" of the procedure--the degree to which it can generally be accepted as tending toward a good decision--is nevertheless crucial. Yet if good decisions were all that mattered, one might wonder why those who know best shouldn't simply rule. Estlund's theory--which he calls "epistemic proceduralism"--avoids epistocracy, or the rule of those who know. He argues that while some few people probably do know best, this can be used in political justification only if their expertise is acceptable from all reasonable points of view. If we seek the best epistemic arrangement in this respect, it will be recognizably democratic--with laws and policies actually authorized by the people subject to them.

Political Epistemology

Political Epistemology PDF Author: Elizabeth Edenberg
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192893335
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
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.