
Political Knowledge and Democracy at Scale
A Systems Defense Against Democratic Skepticism
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Most philosophical defenses of democracy are moral ones, appealing to principles of inclusion or right or justice; this book takes seriously democratic skepticism but uses these critiques to argue for democracy as a political goal on epistemic grounds. >This book responds by arguing for the epistemic value of democracy and clarifying a definition of political knowledge beyond expertise. The embedded model of political knowledge understands political knowledge (including expertise) to be situated, incomplete, and fallible in ways that necessitate maximal political inclusion and opportunities fo...
Most philosophical defenses of democracy are moral ones, appealing to principles of inclusion or right or justice; this book takes seriously democratic skepticism but uses these critiques to argue for democracy as a political goal on epistemic grounds. >This book responds by arguing for the epistemic value of democracy and clarifying a definition of political knowledge beyond expertise. The embedded model of political knowledge understands political knowledge (including expertise) to be situated, incomplete, and fallible in ways that necessitate maximal political inclusion and opportunities for productive epistemic sharing among the polity. Deliberative systems can facilitate these opportunities at scale by relying on formal and informal institutions as sites for epistemic expression and engagement. In centering the epistemic role of deliberative systems over the epistemic responsibilities of the individual in a democratic context, we can examine the ways in which political knowledge forms and is expressed in mass democracies. This book suggests that poor political outcomes result, not when publics are insufficiently knowledgeable, but when our epistemic institutions fail to ensure that policy is responsive to public knowledge. A deliberative systems approach reveals ways in which problems like misinformation and political apathy are not features of public ignorance but are rather contingent symptoms of systems in which epistemic institutions operate according to non-democratic practices and logics.