Limitations Of Epistemic Foundations Of Democracy

Nowadays, democracy is unfortunately seen as inevitable; in other words, it is the political system no one dares to question and even less making it publicly. According to several experts, this is an unfortunate fact for two main reasons. First, this practice limits our imagination. When considering other alternatives is almost forbidden, we do not think about them, and what is worst, we will not see or find them even if they are right in front of our eyes. Second, because even if democracy can be considered as the best political system, to become it in a dead dogma and not see it just an option will weaken it. Perhaps, it is even more disturbing the way democracy can be imported and imposed as a facade when the mentality remains averse to

Actually, when it comes the moment of truth, people without a democratic mentality will reject the simple public advocacy of certain ideas considering them improper, and they will carefully avoid voting on them, even if they may have a guarantee of winning. What these people do not want is the spirit of others being contaminated by ideas they may consider as dangerous. Perhaps, deep down they are afraid to be wrong, but it costs too much to admit it.

People’s Epistemic Limitations on Democracy

The previous analysed aspects are closely related to the epistemic foundations of democracy. As some experts put it, democracy can be considered at the same time as a wonderful epistemic device, but also the most profound and disturbing mark of our epistemic limitations, disturbing specifically for those people who lack epistemic humility.

Thus, democracy is a wonderful epistemic device because it allows free discussion of opposing ideas, no matter how unacceptable and disgusting they might be. It allows us to evaluate those beliefs we may consider as a truth, while discovering others. This way, starting a free discussion with different or even opposing ideas often produces consensus, since this practice enable us to discover ideas that, after much discussion, we consider better than the ones we had