Description
Book SynopsisThis is the first edited scholarly collection devoted solely to the epistemology of democracy. Its fifteen chapters, published here for the first time and written by an international team of leading researchers, will interest scholars and advanced students working in democratic theory, the harrowing crisis of democracy, political philosophy, social epistemology, and political epistemology.
The volume is structured into three parts, each offering five chapters. The first part, Democratic Pessimism, covers the crisis of democracy, the rise of authoritarianism, public epistemic vices, misinformation and disinformation, civic ignorance, and the lacking quantitative case for democratic decision-making. The second part, Democratic Optimism, discusses the role of hope and positive emotions in rebuilding democracy, proposes solutions to myside bias, and criticizes dominant epistocratic approaches to forming political administrations. The third and final part, Democrat
Table of Contents
Introduction: What the Epistemology of Democracy Is All About
Hana Samaržija
Part I: Democratic Pessimism
1. Sexy but Wrong: Diversity Theorem Defenses of Democracy
Jason Brennan
2. A Belated Failure: Condorcet in Contemporary Epistemic Conditions
Hana Samaržija
3. Social Epistemic Miserliness: Populism against Democracy
Nenad Miščević
4. Critical Thinking and Trusting Experts in Real-life Democracies
Snježana Prijić Samaržija
5. The Dangers of Disinformation
Åsa Wikforss
Part II: Democratic Optimism
6. The Politics of Resentment: Hope, Mistrust, and Polarisation
Alessandra Tanesini
7. Against the Individual Virtue Approach in the Epistemology of Democracy
Marko Luka Zubčić
8. Institutional Cynicism and Civic Virtue
Ian James Kidd
9. Myside Bias in Individuals and Institutions
Keith Stanovich
10. Listening for Epistemic Community
Hanna Kiri Gunn
Part III: Democratic Realism
11. Sensemaking, Empathy, and Democracy
Quassim Cassam
12. Political Skepticism, Bias, and Epistemic Colonization
Michael P. Lynch
13. Economic Inequalities and Epistemic Democracy
Ivan Cerovac
14. What Political Enemies Are for
Robert B. Talisse
15. Top-Down and Bottom-Up Solutions to the Problem of Political Ignorance
Ilya Somin
