Table Of ContentDoes Truth Matter?
Does Truth Matter?
Democracy and Public Space
Edited by
RAF GEENENS
Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium
and
RONALD TINNEVELT
Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Editors
Raf Geenens Ronald Tinnevelt
Catholic University of Leuven Radboud University Nijmegen
Belgium The Netherlands
ISBN: 978-1-4020-8848-3 e-ISBN: 978-1-4020-8849-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008931062
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Acknowledgments
The initial impetus for this book was a congenial conference at the Brussels
Academy Foundation in the Fall of 2005. This conference was jointly organized by
the Institute of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Leuven (K.U. Leuven) and
its francophone counterpart, the Institut Supérieur de Philosophie at the Université
Catholique de Louvain, under the auspices of André Van de Putte’s and Marc
Maesschalck’s “IUAP” research project. We are obliged to all those who partici-
pated and who turned, in the timeframe of just a few days, the idea of a deliberative,
epistemic community into a lived reality. The editors of this book owe a special
debt to Katia Vanhemelryck, who was responsible for the seamless organization of
this conference and without whose inspiration and efforts this collection of essays
would never have seen the light. For all practical matters we have been happy to
count on Renée Köhler-Ryan, on Anita van der Linden-Rachmat at Springer, and
on Stefan Mertens who, as always, managed to track down even the most obscure
scholarly sources. Additional support for the production of this book was kindly
provided by the Centre for Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy at Leuven’s
Institute of Philosophy.
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Contents
1 Truth and Public Space: Setting Out Some Signposts .......................... 1
Raf Geenens and Ronald Tinnevelt
Part I The Epistemic Value of Democracy
2 Epistemic Proceduralism and Democratic Authority ........................... 15
David Estlund
3 Truth and Democracy: Pragmatism and the
Deliberative Virtues ................................................................................. 29
Cheryl Misak
4 Folk Epistemology and the Justifi cation of Democracy ....................... 41
Robert B. Talisse
5 Truth and Power in Modern Politics ...................................................... 55
Philippe Raynaud
Part II Institutionalizing Democracy
6 Truth and Trust in Democratic Epistemology ....................................... 69
Matthew Festenstein
7 The People Versus the Truth: Democratic Illusions ............................. 81
Glen Newey
Part III The Physical Spaces of Democracy
8 Does Democracy Require Physical Public Space? ................................ 101
John R. Parkinson
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viii Contents
9 Cities as Spaces of Democracy: Complexity, Scale,
and Governance ...................................................................................... 115
Murray Low
10 Semi-public Spaces: The Spatial Logic of Institutions ....................... 133
Bart Verschaffel
Part IV Transnational Democracy
11 Democratization Through Transnational Publics:
Deliberative Inclusion Across Borders ................................................. 149
James Bohman
12 Conceptualizing the Power of Transnational Agents:
Pragmatism and International Public Spheres ................................... 167
Molly Cochran
Author Index................................................................................................... 187
Subject Index .................................................................................................. 191
Contributors
James Bohman is Danforth Professor of Philosophy and Professor of International
Studies at St. Louis University. He is the author of Democracy Across Borders
(MIT Press, 2007), Public Deliberation: Pluralism, Complexity and Democracy
(MIT Press, 1996) and New Philosophy of Social Science: Problems of Indeterminacy
(MIT Press, 1991). He is currently writing a book on cosmopolitan aspects of
republican political theory.
Molly Cochran taught at the University of Bristol prior to her appointment at
Georgia Tech in 1999. Her book, Normative Theory in International Relations: A
Pragmatic Approach was published by Cambridge University Press in 1999. She is
currently writing a book entitled, International Public Spheres and Democratic
Global Governance, and is editing the Cambridge Companion to John Dewey. Her
research and teaching interests include: contemporary justice debates, democratic
theory, international ethics and international relations theory.
David Estlund is Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Philosophy
at Brown University, where he has taught since 1991. He previously taught at
University of California, Irvine, and has spent fellowship years at the Program in
Ethics at Harvard, and at Australian National University. He is editor of the collec-
tion, Democracy (Blackwell, 2002) and is the author of Democratic Authority: A
Philosophical Framework (Princeton University Press, 2008). He has been the
recipient of fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, and the
National Endowment for the Humanities.
Matthew Festenstein is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of
York. His publications include Pragmatism and Political Theory (Polity Press and
University of Chicago Press, 1997) and Negotiating Diversity: Culture, Deliberation,
and Trust (Polity Press, 2005). He is also a coeditor of Richard Rorty: Critical
Dialogues (Polity Press, 2001), Political Ideologies (Oxford University Press,
2005) and Radicalism in English Political Thought (Cambridge University Press,
2007), and currently an editor of Political Studies.
Raf Geenens is a postdoctoral researcher in political theory at the Catholic
University of Leuven, where he received his PhD in Philosophy in 2008. He has
also studied at the universities of Brussels and Paris VIII, and has been a visiting
ix
x Contributors
student at the New School for Social Research. The editor of a book on Alexis de
Tocqueville, Reading Tocqueville: From Oracle to Actor (Palgrave Macmillan
2007, together with Annelien De Dijn), he is currently preparing a monograph on
the work of French political thinker Claude Lefort.
Murray Low is Lecturer in Human Geography at the London School of Economics
and Political Science. He is the coeditor of Spaces of Democracy (Sage, 2004) and
The Sage Handbook of Political Geography (Sage, 2008). He studied Human
Geography and Political Science at the University of Cambridge, The New School
for Social Research and The Ohio State University. His interests are in political and
democratic theory, urban politics and urban democratisation.
Cheryl Misak is Professor of Philosophy at The University of Toronto. Her publi-
cations include Truth and the End of Inquiry: A Peircean Account of Truth (Oxford
University Press, 1991, 2004), Verificationism: Its History and Prospects (Routledge,
1995), and Truth, Politics, Morality: Pragmatism and Deliberation (Routledge, 2000).
Glen Newey is Professor of Politics and International Relations at Keele
University. He is the author of Virtue, Reason and Toleration (1999), After Politics
(2001) and Hobbes and Leviathan (2007), as well as numerous papers on subjects
including toleration, value-pluralism, political obligation, freedom of speech, and
political deception. His main current project examines the relation between tolera-
tion, liberty and security. He was educated at the universities of Cambridge and
York, and has been a visiting fellow at the School for Advanced Studies, University
of London, and at Princeton University.
John R. Parkinson is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of York,
specialising in democratic theory, comparative democratic institutions, and theo-
ries of the policy process. His most recent book is Deliberating in the Real World
(Oxford University Press, 2006). His next will be Democracy and Public
Space (Oxford University Press, 2009). He has also published various journal
articles on referendums in New Zealand and Switzerland, the British House of
Lords and restorative justice.
Philippe Raynaud is Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Paris II
and at the EHESS’s Centre de Recherches Politiques Raymond Aron. His publications
include Max Weber et les dilemmes de la raison moderne (Presses universitaires de
France, 1987) and L’Extrême Gauche plurielle. Entre démocratie et révolution
(Autrement, 2006). He is also the editor (together with Stéphane Rials) of the
Dictionnaire de philosophie politique (Presses universitaires de France, 1996).
Robert B. Talisse is Associate Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at
Vanderbilt University. His latest work addresses questions concerning the justifica-
tion of democracy, the significance of public ignorance, and the epistemology of
political argumentation. His most recent books are A Pragmatist Philosophy of
Democracy (Routledge, 2007) and Democracy and Moral Conflict (Cambridge,
2009). His principal area of research is political philosophy, focussing on democratic
Contributors xi
theory, and he has also worked extensively on pragmatism, especially Peirce’s con-
ception of inquiry.
Ronald Tinnevelt is Associate Professor in Legal Philosophy at the Radboud
University Nijmegen. He is coeditor of Between Cosmopolitan Ideals and State
Sovereignty (Palgrave, 2006) and Nationalism and Global Justice (Routledge, 2008);
and currently editing a special issue of Metaphilosophy on global democracy and
global exclusion. His main research interests include cosmopolitanism, human rights,
democracy, and justice.
Bart Verschaffel is a philosopher and full professor of Theory of Architecture and
Architectural Criticism at Ghent University (Belgium). He has numerous publica-
tions in the fields of Architectural Theory, Theory of History, Aesthetics, and
Philosophy of Culture, including the monographs: De glans der dingen. Studies en
kritieken over kunst en cultuur (1989); Rome/over theatraliteit (1990); Figuren/
Essays (1995); Architecture Is (as) a Gesture (2001), À propos de Balthus (2004);
Van Hermes en Hestia. Teksten over architectuur (2006); Essais sur les genres en
peinture. Nature morte, portrait, paysage (2007).
