Lorenzo Rustighi
Lorenzo Rustighi: Università degli Studi di Padova, FISSPA (lorenzo.rustighi@unipd.it; ORCID: 0000-0002-7962-3774).
Contemporary Political Epistemology: A Critical Analysis
Abstract: This paper critically engages with some of the most relevant theoretical trends in contemporary political epistemology, focusing especially on epistemic democracy, epistocracy, and lottocracy. After briefly underscoring how these theories, although very different, aspire to ground the legitimacy of political obligation upon the truth value of deliberative processes, this contribution suggests that they all depend on generic assumptions related to the mainstream concept of democracy, without exposing the latter, in turn, to any kind of epistemological inquiry aiming at assessing its epistemic consistency. This makes it necessary to explore the genesis of such a concept, which is traced back to modern social contract theories and illustrated through the case study of Thomas Hobbes, in order to show how the constitutional structure of our democratic regimes, as far as it is based on the concepts of authorization and representation, makes no room for the question about truth raised by political epistemologists. In light of these results, the paper argues, it is vital to refashion the very scopes of the epistemological work on politics by shifting its focus towards the epistemic status of the key political concepts, thus evaluating their validity as well as their practical effects.
Keywords: Political Epistemology; Epistemic Democracy; Epistocracy; Lottocracy; Social Contract Theories.