Democracy as Inquiry, Inquiry as Democratic: Pragmatism, Social Science, and the Cognitive Division of Labor

Item

Title

Democracy as Inquiry, Inquiry as Democratic: Pragmatism, Social Science, and the Cognitive Division of Labor

Abstract/Description

One of the most distinctive features of pragmatism's conception of democracy is the strong connection that it makes between science and democracy. Not only must science be democratically organized, Dewey argues, but democracy must also be a form of social inquiry that incorporates the cognitive division of labon The pervasiveness of agent/principal relationships that results from the "social organization of intelligence" presents a problem for deliberative democracy. In order that deliberation can become more than "mere discussion," the division of labor implies that it will sometimes be impossible for citizens to test the 'knowledge employed by experts. Using AIDS activism as an example, I propose that citizens will nonetheless be able to engage in public deliberation about the norms of cooperation between expert agents and lay principals, including even epistemic norms of validity, reliability, and evidence.

Author/creator

Bohman, James

Date

1999

In publication

American Journal of Political Science

Volume

43

Issue

2

Pages

590-607

Resource type

en Background/Context

Medium

en Print

Background/context type

en Conceptual

Open access/free-text available

en No

Peer reviewed

en Yes

ISSN

0092-5853

DOI

10.2307/2991808

URL

Official Publisher's Webpage (JSTOR)

Citation

Bohman, J. (1999). Democracy as Inquiry, Inquiry as Democratic: Pragmatism, Social Science, and the Cognitive Division of Labor. American Journal of Political Science, 43(2), 590–607. https://doi.org/10.2307/2991808

Cited in

The Theory and Practice of Democracy and Community

Item sets

Handbook Chapter 6 Citations

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