Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-7sgmh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-24T23:13:49.365Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Epistemology of Democracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 January 2012

Elizabeth Anderson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper investigates the epistemic powers of democratic institutions through an assessment of three epistemic models of democracy: the Condorcet Jury Theorem, the Diversity Trumps Ability Theorem, and Dewey's experimentalist model. Dewey's model is superior to the others in its ability to model the epistemic functions of three constitutive features of democracy: the epistemic diversity of participants, the interaction of voting with discussion, and feedback mechanisms such as periodic elections and protests. It views democracy as an institution for pooling widely distributed information about problems and policies of public interest by engaging the participation of epistemically diverse knowers. Democratic norms of free discourse, dissent, feedback, and accountability function to ensure collective, experimentally-based learning from the diverse experiences of different knowers. I illustrate these points with a case study of community forestry groups in South Asia, whose epistemic powers have been hobbled by their suppression of women's participation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Episteme , Volume 3 , Issue 1-2 , June 2006 , pp. 8 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Agarwal, B. (2000). Conceptualizing Environmental Collective Action: Why Gender Matters. Cambridge Journal of Economics 24: 283–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Agarwal, B. (2001). Participatory Exclusions, Community Forestry, and Gender: An Analysis for South Asia and a Conceptual Framework. World Development 29(10): 1623–48.Google Scholar
Anderson, E. (2002). Consumer Sovereignty vs. Citizens' Sovereignty: Some Errors in Neoclassical Welfare Economics. In Freiheit, Gleichheit und Autonomie: Wiener Reihe. Themen der Philosophie, ed. Pauer-Studer, H. and Nagl-Docekal, H.. Vienna-Munich: Verlag Oldenbourg.Google Scholar
Cohen, J. (1986). An Epistemic Conception of Democracy. Ethics 97(1): 26–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Condorcet, M. J. A. N. d. C., de, Marquis. (1995). An Essay on the Application of Analysis to the Probability of Decisions Rendered by a Plurality of Votes. In Classics of Social Choice, ed. and trans. McLean, I., trans. and Urken, ed. A., 91–112. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Dewey, J. (1976). Valuation and Experimental Knowledge. In The Middle Works of John Dewey, 1899-1924, vol. 13, ed. Boydston, J. A., 3–28. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Dewey, J. (1981a). Creative Democracy: The Task before Us. In The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925-1953, vol. 14, Essays, ed. Boydston, J. A., 224–30. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Dewey, J. (1981b). Freedom and Culture. In The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925-1953, vol. 13, ed. Boydston, J. A., 65–188. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Dewey, J. (1981c). The Public and its Problems. In The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925-1953, vol. 2, ed. Boydston, J. A., 235–372. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.Google Scholar
Estlund, D. (1994). Opinion Leaders, Independence, and Condorcet's Jury Theorem. Theory and Decision 36(2): 131–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Estlund, D. (1997). Beyond Fairness and Deliberation: The Epistemic Dimension of Democratic Authority. In Deliberative Democracy, ed. Bohman, J. and Rehg, W., 173–204. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fey, M. (2003). A Note on the Condorcet Jury Theorem with Supermajority Voting Rules. Social Choice and Welfare 20(1): 27–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaus, G. (1997). Does Democracy Reveal the Voice of the People? Four Takes on Rousseau. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 75(2): 141–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gilbert, M. (1989). On Social Facts. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Grofman, B., and Feld, S.. (1988). Rousseau's General Will: A Condorcetian Perspective. American Political Science Review 82(2): 567–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hayek, F. A. v. (1945). The Use of Knowledge in Society. American Economic Review 35: 519–30.Google Scholar
Herzog, D. (2000). Externalities and Other Parasites. University of Chicago Law Review 67: 895–923.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hong, L., and Page, S.. (2004). Groups of Diverse Problem Solvers Can Outperform Groups of High-Ability Problem Solvers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101: 16385–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
List, C. (2001). Epistemic Democracy: Generalizing the Condorcet Jury Theorem. Journal of Political Philosophy 9(3): 277–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manin, B. (1987). On Legitimacy and Political Deliberation. Political Theory 15: 338–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Page, S. (forthcoming 2006). Thinking Differently: How Our Individual Differences Produce Collective Benefits. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Putnam, H. (1990). A Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy. Southern California Law Re-view 63: 1671–97.Google Scholar
Richardson, H. (1997). Democratic Intentions. In Deliberative Democracy, ed. Bohman, J. and Rehg, W., 349–82. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Surowiecki, J. (2004). The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations. Doubleday.Google Scholar
Westlund, A. (2003). Selflessness and Responsibility for Self: Is Deference Compatible With Autonomy? Philosophical Review 112(4): 483–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar