Abstract
One of the most powerful but elusive motifs in pragmatist philosophy is the idea that a liberal democracy should be understood as a community of inquirers. This paper offers a critical appraisal of a recent attempt to make sense of this intuition in the context of contemporary political theory, in what may be called pragmatist political liberalism (PPL). Drawing together ideas from Rawlsian political liberalism, epistemic democracy and pragmatism, proponents of PPL argue that the pragmatist conception of inquiry can provide a satisfying interpretation of the idea of justificatory neutrality as it appears in political liberalism. This is contrasted with Dewey's understanding of the epistemic character of democracy, which is viewed as unacceptably sectarian. This paper identifies and criticizes the two principal lines of argument made in support of PPL: the clarification argument and the fixation argument. Neither of these lines of argument, it is argued, passes the test each sets itself. I argue that the latter closes down the epistemic openness in the justification of democracy that is central to pragmatism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
How to understand these goals was a bone of contention between Peirce, James and Dewey: see Peirce, CP 5: 508, 555–560 (references to Peirce, 1931–1960 given in the standard volume: paragraph number form); James, 1907; Dewey, 1908.
‘Philosophy ought to imitate the successful sciences in its methods […] and trust rather to the multitude and variety of its arguments than to the conclusiveness of any one. Its reasoning should not form a chain that is no stronger than the weakest link, but a cable the fibers of which may be ever so slender, provided they are sufficiently numerous and intimately connected’ (Peirce, CP 5: 265).
‘The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit; and different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which they give rise. If beliefs do not differ in this respect, if they appease the same doubt by producing the same rule of action, then no mere differences in the manner of consciousness of them can make them different beliefs, any more than playing a tune in different keys is playing different tunes’ (Peirce, CP 5: 398).
A precise unpacking of this claim requires more elaboration than can be dealt with here.
I am grateful to Robert Talisse for pressing me on this.
There is a further issue of whether such a strongly epistemic interpretation of reasonableness is in any case required by or consonant with the goals of political liberalism. See Rawls, 1993, p. 54; Weinstock (2006).
Ethical non-cognitivism is an important target of Misak (2000), but she does not adhere to PPL – with good reason, I am suggesting.
I have discussed some of the relevant issues [seemingly ad nauseam] in Festenstein, 1997, 2001, 2004, 2008.
References
Anderson, E. (2006) The epistemology of democracy. Episteme 3 (1): 8–22.
Brodsky, G. (1971) The pragmatic movement. The Review of Metaphysics 25: 262–291.
Dewey, J. (1908 [1976–1983]) What pragmatism means by practical. In: J. Boydston (ed.) John Dewey, the Middle Works, Vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, pp. 98–115.
Dewey, J. (1927 [1981–1992]) The public and its problems. In: J. Boydston (ed.) John Dewey, the Later Works, Vol. 2. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Dewey, J. (1935 [1981–1992]) Liberalism and Social Action. In: J. Boydston (ed.) John Dewey, the later Works, Vol II.Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Dewey, J. (1938 [1981–1992]) Logic: The theory of inquiry. In: J. Boydston (ed.) John Dewey, the Later Works, Vol. 12. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Dewey, J. and Tufts, J. (1908 [1976–1983]) Ethics, 1st edn. In J. Boydston (ed.) John Dewey, the Middle Works, Vol. 4. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Dewey, J. and Tufts, J. (1932 [1981–1992]) Ethics, 2nd edn. In: J. Boydston (ed.) John Dewey, the Later Works, Vol. 7. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press.
Estlund, D. (2008) Democratic Authority. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Fairweather, A. and Zagzebski, L. (2001) Virtue Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Festenstein, M. (1997) Pragmatism and Political Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Festenstein, M. (2001) Inquiry as critique: On the legacy of Deweyan pragmatism for political theory. Political Studies 49 (4): 730–748.
Festenstein, M. (2003) Politics and acquiescence in Rorty's pragmatism. Theoria 101: 1–24.
Festenstein, M. (2004) Deliberative democracy and two models of pragmatism. European Journal of Social Theory 7 (3): 291–306.
Festenstein, M. (2007) Inquiry and democracy. In: P. Baert and B. Turner (eds.) Pragmatism and European Social Theory. Cambridge: Bardwell Press, pp. 115–136.
Festenstein, M. (2008) John Dewey: Inquiry, ethics and democracy. In: C. Misak (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of American Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 87–109.
Gaus, G. (1996) Justificatory Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gaus, G. (2003) Contemporary Theories of Liberalism: Public Reason as a Post-Enlightenment Project. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Geenens, R. and Tinnevelt, R. (eds.) (2009) Does Truth Matter? New York: Springer.
Goodin, R. (2003) Reflective Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Haack, S. 2003 Defending Science – Within Reason. New York: Prometheus.
Hookway, C. (2000) Truth, Rationality and Pragmatism: Themes from Peirce. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
James, W. (1978[1907]) Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kloppenberg, J. (1998) The Virtues of Liberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Laden, A. (2001) Reasonably Radical: Deliberative Liberalism and the Politics of Identity. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Larmore, C. (1996) The Morals of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
List, C. and Goodin, R. (2001) Epistemic democracy: Generalizing the condorcet jury theorem. Journal of Political Philosophy 9: 277–306.
McGilvray, E. (2004) Reconstructing Public Reason. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Mill, J.S. (1991) Considerations on representative government. In: J. Gray (ed.) On Liberty and Other Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Misak, C. (2000) Truth, Morality, Politics: Pragmatism and Deliberation. New York: Routledge.
Misak, C. (2004) Making disagreement matter: Pragmatism and deliberative democracy. Journal of Speculative Philosophy 18: 9–22.
Misak, C. (ed.) (2007) New Pragmatists. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Peirce, C.S (1931–1960) Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, 8 Vols, Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (eds., Vols. 1–6), and Arthur Burks (ed., Vols. 7–8) Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Peter, F. (2007) Democratic legitimacy and proceduralist social epistemology. Philosophy, Politics and Economics 6: 329–353.
Putnam, H. (1990) Realism with a Human Face. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Putnam, H. (1994) Words and Life. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Quine, W. (1981) The pragmatist's place in empiricism. In: Robert J. Mulvaney and Philip M. Zeltner (eds.) Pragmatism: Its Sources and Prospects. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, pp. 21–39.
Rawls, J. (1993) Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.
Rawls, J. (1999) Collected Papers. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Richardson, H. (1999) Truth and ends in Dewey's pragmatism. Canadian Journal of Philosophy supplementary 24: 109–147.
Rorty, R. (1991) Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth Philosophical Papers, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rorty, R. (1999) Philosophy and Social Hope. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
Scheffler, I. (1974) Four Pragmatists. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Shook, J. and Margolis, J. (eds.) (2006) A Companion to Pragmatism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Talisse, R. (2007) From pragmatism to perfectionism. Philosophy and Social Criticism 33 (3): 387–406.
Talisse, R. (2008) A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy. New York; London: Routledge.
Talisse, R. and Aikin, S. (2005) Why pragmatists cannot be pluralists. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 41: 104–106.
Waldron, J. (1993) Liberal Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Waldron, J. (2004) Liberalism, political and comprehensive. In: G. Gaus and C. Kukathas (eds.) The Handbook of Political Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 89–99.
Weinstock, D. (2006) A neutral conception of reasonableness? Episteme 3: 234–247.
Westbrook, R. (2005) Democratic Hope: Pragmatism and the Politics of Truth. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Williams, B. (2002) Truth and Truthfulness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Williams, B. (2005) In the Beginning Was the Deed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful for comments from Michael Bacon, Matt Sleat, Bob Talisse and this journal's referees. Some of the material here was read at the Political Studies Association Annual Conference at Swansea in 2008, and I am grateful to the participants at this session and to the panel organizer, Thom Brooks.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Festenstein, M. Pragmatism, inquiry and political liberalism. Contemp Polit Theory 9, 25–44 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2009.6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/cpt.2009.6