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

Abstract

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 inquiry that incorporates the cognitive division of labor. 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.