Deliberative epistemic instrumentalism, or something near enough

Abstract

In her book Democracy and Truth: The Conflict between Political and Epistemic Virtues, Snježana Prijić Samaržija advocates a stance that not only political, but also epistemic values are necessary for justification of democracy. Specifically, she mounts defense for one particular type of public deliberation on epistemic grounds. In this paper, I will discuss the following issue: What connects this type of public deliberation to the wider context of (epistemic) justification of democracy? I will attempt to explain why Prijić Samaržija’s stance can be understood as a version of deliberative epistemic instrumentalism and to discuss the role played by the public deliberation within this framework. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 43007]

Keywords

• democracy
• procedure
• epistemic values
• public deliberation
• democratic system