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.
This book examines the Condorcet Jury Theorem and how its assumptions can be applicable to the real world.
For Peirce, MacGilvray urges, a belief constitutes a habit or rule of action. To belief a proposition for Peirce is to be ready to act on it, and beliefs are different insofar as they give rise to different modes of action.
Groups engage in epistemic activity all the time, from the collective inquiry of scientific researchers to the deliberations of juries. Yet there is still relatively little philosophical work on collective epistemology.
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.
The first edited collection to explore one of the most rapidly growing area of philosophy: political epistemology.
This book re-imagines expert authority for an age of critical citizens, and shows how expertise can contribute in a deliberative system.
In political philosophy, the revival of pragmatism has led to a new appreciation for the democratic theory of John Dewey. In this book, Robert B. Talisse advances a series of pragmatic arguments against Deweyan democracy.
This book will set the standard for this movement and become necessary reading not only for behavioral and philosophical scholars but for all political scientists.
The essays in this volume question whether democratic politics requires discussion of truth and, if so, how truth should matter to democratic politics.
"--Jon Elster, Columbia University "Making an important contribution to democratic theory, this outstanding book takes seriously the possibility of popular rule and successful democratic decision making.