1Believing is believing true, though any sensible person knows that they may be mistaken even in the beliefs they think best-founded. According to Misak and Talisse, we can get from the fact that we all take what we believe to be true, whatever our different and incompatible beliefs, to reasons to support democratic, as opposed to undemocratic, government... and all in a few easy steps! Those steps are as follows: (1) believing x to be true commits us to being ready to test that belief (and its truth) against the best available evidence, under conditions suitable to establishing the difference between true and false beliefs. (2) Those conditions require an open society in which we can confidently expect the free circulation of ideas that may be relevant to the truth of our beliefs; (3) and the maintenance of that open society implies a commitment to democratic government—or, at least, suggests an "affinity" between democratic government and our commitment to being open-minded about the sources and bearers of wisdom and truth. Hence, Misak suggests, Peircean epistemic norms provide, "a built-in rationale here for democratic methods of inquiry and ways of living. If we want beliefs that would stand up to the experiences of all, we had better take the experiences of all seriously." [1]

2These stimulating claims raise a variety of questions. However, these brief comments on Misak and Talisse's arguments will focus on their claim that democracy is a necessary part of the social conditions to pursue truth. Democracies—whether ideal or real—appear very different in their epistemic, as well as in their moral and political, properties. We will want to consider, then, whether the Peircean case for democracy does not depend on overlooking the differences amongst democracies, while exaggerating their differences from other forms of government. Misak and Talisse helpfully insist that democracy is not sufficient for truth-supporting social conditions, [2] but say nothing about the relative importance of democracy compared to whatever other conditions might be required to pursue truth. However, if democracy is relatively unimportant compared to other

3necessary factors, or inconsistent with the most important amongst them, knowing that democracy is necessary will be insufficient to justify it epistemically. In order to understand Misak and Talisse's views, then, it is necessary to understand what they do and don't involve. Unfortunately, I do not have room in this short article to address their misunderstandings of the arguments in Lever and Chin (2019), [3] and will therefore limit myself to noting some of them briefly in the footnotes.

The Peircean Case for Democracy (PD)

4The Peircean case for democracy is motivated by the idea that "[t]here is a built-in rationale" for "democratic methods of inquiry and ways of living" if we want to be sure that our beliefs "stand up to the experiences of all". [4] A commitment to testing the truth of our ideas means being open to the experiences and beliefs of other people, without preconceptions about whose ideas are worthy of attention. Hence, as Dominik Gerber notes, the appeal of Peircean arguments for democracy lies partly in its epistemic egalitarianism, or the belief that we can learn from others, no matter the colour of their skin, their gender or sexuality, their social status or their political and moral convictions. [5] Arguments for withholding the vote from women, from racial and religious minorities, even from the poor, were often associated with, and sometimes depended on, the idea that these groups were epistemically deficient in some way, and therefore could not be trusted with political power. [6] Hence, justifications for undemocratic government appear to impugn Peircean norms of belief.

5As Misak and Talisse explain, it is natural to suppose that social conditions propitious to determining the truth of our ideas require extensive and stringent protections for free expression and debate—what they sometimes refer to as a "liberal" and sometimes as an "open' society". [7] If we care about the truth of our ideas, we will want to know that they are formed under conditions conducive to truth—where relevant information, ideas, expressions will be accessible to us and where we can test and make use of them without fear for our lives and livelihoods, or the wellbeing of others. Such a society requires "robust protections for free inquiry, unfettered expression and individuality, the open exchange and dissemination of ideas, personal liberties of conscience and association and so on". [8] Moreover, as Talisse insists, if we care about the truth of our ideas, we will want to create epistemically favourable social conditions that are reliable, and do not depend on the good will of a Platonic King, or anything of the sort. [9] Hence, he argues, our epistemic interests give us reasons to prefer constitutional democracy to rule by a Platonic ruler and, a forteriori, to various forms of constitutional but undemocratic government. Without constitutional democracy, Talisse believes, we have no assurance that we can alter our epistemic environment so that it is conducive to truth. [10] Hence, while democracy alone is insufficient for confidence in the epistemic qualities of our environment, it looks as though a series of interlocking considerations give us compelling reasons to favour democratic over undemocratic government. [11] Indeed, because those reasons apply to us as individuals, and follow from our individual duties to establish the truth of our ideas, the Peircean case for democracy can apply to each of us equally, regardless of the particular beliefs that we happen to hold, or the circumstances in which we happen to find ourselves. Hence Misak and Talisse claim that Peircean ideas provide a distinctive case for supporting democratic government—an epistemic justification of democracy—whose force persists however disenchanted we are morally or politically with democracy, with our fellow citizens, or with our governments. [12]

6Strikingly, the Peircean argument for democracy, as Misak and Talisse emphasise in this issue, is independent of any empirical correlates or evidence that democracy is better than other forms of government at discovering the truth, sharing it widely, or avoiding error. [13] Hence, "no high or special epistemic value" attaches to democratic decisions. [14] That, indeed, is part of its appeal: that we do not need to suppose that democratic decisions are especially wise, nor that democratic citizens have special epistemic capacities individually or in the aggregate. [15] However, if the Peircean case for democracy is not to be a form of "étude transcendentale", we might expect empirical evidence to have some bearing on its claims. So, let's look briefly at some of the conceptual, normative and empirical puzzles thrown up by the Peircean case for democracy. The first puzzle concerns the epistemically inegalitarian implications of the PD; the second concerns the types of freedom required for a "liberal" or "open" society; the third concerns the necessity of democracy and, finally, there is the puzzle of what sort of justification for democracy the PD is meant to provide.

Four Puzzles or Questions Raised by the Peircean case for Democracy

7As we have seen, the appeal of the PD lies, in part, in its epistemic egalitarianism. We may not be equally brilliant, perceptive, or persuasive, but a willingness to be critical of our own ideas and conscientiously to seek the truth implies a willingness to learn from others, no matter their natural or social attributes. [16] However, if democracy is necessary for epistemic confidence in our ideas and those of other people, the PD would seem to point to epistemically inegalitarian, rather than egalitarian premises in many, even most, circumstances.

8Imagine that there are pockets of people, all over the world, interested in the same questions of political theory that we are interested in—the justification of compulsory voting, for example. [17] And let us assume that because we each take our beliefs to be true (rather than for other reasons), [18] we are "committed" to taking the views of these dispersed others into account, on pain of not being a "genuine truth-seeker" ourselves. [19] We each engage, then, in a wide "search" of possible confirming and disconfirming views and evidence. In short, we each behave as a "genuine truth-seeker" on our best understanding of that.

9But what does that mean if, as is quite likely, none of us live in the same society, and when we may not even live in democracies? Are we to discount the credibility of other people's views on the grounds that their society imperfectly supports their quest for the truth? If so, in what way? On all issues, or only on some? And if what we are concerned about are socially conditioned tendencies to bias, should we not be concerned with whatever biases are characteristic of democracies, and with the epistemic significance of the type of democracy to which people belong? Democracies, whether ideal or nonideal, can be more or less nationalist and cosmopolitan, capitalist and social democratic, and these differences are likely to matter to the availability, as well as the prestige and credibility, of the views that they contain. So while the Peircean argument for democracy implies that even in an undemocratic society you can be a truth-aspiring and reason-responsive believer, so long as you accept that your epistemic norms justify democratic government, epistemic agents are labouring at a significant disadvantage if their society is undemocratic. Their obstacles to truth are greater, it would seem, than those of democratic citizens, who have a truth-supporting environment in which to form and test their beliefs. It would therefore be good to know more about the epistemically inegalitarian implications of the Peircean case for democracy, and the way that they are to be reconciled with the epistemic openness and egalitarianism that had seemed part of its appeal. [20]

10Secondly, and relatedly, it would be good to know how the Peircean case for democracy understands the openness of an open society, given persistent disagreement about the proper limits of freedom of expression in many democracies. For example, feminists, critical race theorists or, indeed, democrats moved by republican, rather than liberal, philosophical convictions, sometimes claim that liberal "tolerance" and "openness" drowns out, devalues or actively undermines the truth-claims of disadvantaged social groups. [21] Such concerns appear prominently in debates about the effects of pornography, "hate" speech, Holocaust-denial, racial and ethnic statistics and hijab-wearing by women in the public realm. The debates are partly empirical—about the consequences of different legal rights, attitudes and practices on people's social standing, security, and credibility. But the debates are also partly theoretical and, indeed, deontological: about what it means to respect others, to include them, to "hear" them, to treat them as equals. [22] Thus, even if we are committed to seeking truth, it is unclear what forms of "openness" and "inclusion" we should be committed to and, therefore, how far our commitment to truth implies a commitment to liberal political ideals, and to democracy as the political expression and guarantor of that liberalism. [23]

11Thirdly, it is unclear that democratic government is the political correlate of epistemic norms of self-criticism and openness to others as Misak and Talisse suggest; or that democracy is in some way necessary to the maintenance of an open society, as Talisse claims. Of course, it is natural to suppose that the class and sexual biases that precluded universal suffrage in Britain in the nineteenth century, and the religious, ethnic and racial biases that shaped England's relationship to other countries (and to its treatment of Ireland, Scotland and Wales) had real and damaging consequences for truth-seeking. But powerful and repeated challenges to those biases occurred before England became a democracy, and those biases did not vanish with universal suffrage. So the puzzle remains: why is democratic government necessary for us each to have the best conditions, even adequate conditions to pursue truth? And why, simply because we are all committed to seeking truth, must the same set of conditions—democratic government—be necessary for us all?

12It matters, here, that not all justifications for a restricted franchise imply epistemic distrust. For example, republican justifications for excluding waged workers from the franchise implied no general epistemic incapacity on their part. Instead, the concern was that waged workers might have to subordinate their judgement to their employer's will. [24] Indeed, if politics is seen as a rather grubby trade, rather than a desirable occupation or a general right, justifications for a restricted franchise might reflect the idea that politics is debasing for people with a higher calling. Hence, the association of undemocratic government with epistemic distrust, natural to those of us who have lived in democracies, can be misleading. [25] Indeed, unless moral or political arguments for democracy must proceed via claims about its epistemic superiority to alternatives, I can value political accountability for reasons that are not epistemic and, even, if democratic government hampers my pursuit of the truth. [26]

13It is also difficult to understand why democratic government is supposed to be especially efficacious at ensuring an open society, or what the contours of such an epistemically desirable form of government would look like. The difficulty is partly that democracies come in many different forms, and this affects the epistemic reasons to favour democracy as compared to the best of the alternatives. Plausibly, some types of democracy are better at safeguarding and using past knowledge; others are better at generating new ideas; some are better at sharing ideas equally amongst an educated population, and so on. Thus, the differences amongst democracies epistemically may be more striking than their similarities, especially when compared to governments that are constitutional, open but have some epistocratic restrictions on the franchise, or support some form of plural voting—perhaps in order to protect minorities from being consistently outvoted and ignored by the majority. [27]

14Moreover, if the Peircean case against Platonic rulers is that individual knowers have no effective control over them, [28] then the same is surely true of democratic government as well. As individuals there is little we can do to influence democratic decisions. Rather, as Valeria Ottonelli emphasises in this issue, democratic politics requires us to engage in complex coalitions with others in order to be effective. [29] Individual control of one's government, in other words, is no more likely in democracy than in a Platonic dictatorship, however important the forms of freedom that each protect. Even collective control depends on the type of democracy that one imagines, and the degree to which one is willing to identify people's epistemic interests with the decisions of an electoral majority, however small, or with a coalition of powerful minorities. [30] Once one considers the scope for conflict between individual and collective rationality, [31] and that the forms of openness and inclusion necessary for republican, socialist and/or cosmopolitan democracy may be different, even incompatible, it is unclear why the similarities, rather than the differences amongst democracies should determine our epistemic duties. Thus, neither the instrumental nor the non-instrumental arguments for democracy on epistemic grounds support the claim that democracy is necessary to our individual and collective search for truth.

15Fourthly, and finally, it is hard to know how to interpret the Peircean argument for democracy and what role, if any, empirical and conceptual considerations are meant to play in its argument. Given consistent philosophical disagreement about the freedoms and institutions necessary for an open society, on the one hand, and for a democratic society, on the other, it is by no means obvious that Peircean epistemic norms require some form of liberal constitutional democracy, let alone what social, political and legal rights, freedoms and institutions might thereby be justified.

16If democratic government is only one of several conditions necessary for individuals to fulfil their epistemic duties, the plausibility of an epistemic justification of democracy depends on the nature and weight of the others. Talisse and Misak do not discuss this issue systematically and it is therefore unclear what conclusions we should draw about the relative or absolute importance of democracy, compared to other factors necessary for us to form our beliefs in conditions conductive to truth.

17Consider some of the constraints that actual members of contemporary societies face in testing and improving their beliefs: inadequate education and knowledge, dispositions at odds with critical reflection, knowledge that is available to others but too expensive for those in less well-funded research establishments, and so on. Collective action problems, the legacy of past injustice and the effects of international developments in science and economics might hamper our quest for truth, however democratic our governments. Hence, the significance of democracy for an epistemically adequate environment depends on what other things are necessary and why. For example, the democratic characteristics of our society may be collectively less important to us epistemically than being well-armed when facing threatening neighbours and, individually, our pursuit of truth may depend rather on reliable transport, electricity and healthcare than on democratic government. In principle, democracy is consistent with security and the provision of other public goods. In practice, unfortunately, that is less clear.

18In short, the path from our individual interests in truth to a justification of democratic government is likely to be far longer and more contingent than the Peircean justification of democracy implies. That path may even point in directions that are not especially liberal, constitutional or democratic, depending on how one defines terms and interprets empirical evidence and counterfactuals. Hence, the Peircean case for democracy requires attention to the factors that can undermine our confidence in our epistemic environment, and our ability to fulfil our epistemic duties. What my personal interests in democracy imply for my political interests and behaviour likely depends on how other people act, and on the alternatives available, rather than whether those interests are epistemic or not. The differences between individual and collective rationality, and the complexities of democratic theory and practice, then, are unavoidable in moving from norms of belief to the justification of democratic government.

Conclusion

19As with other theses about the inherent advantages (or disadvantages) of democratic government, Peircean claims about the epistemic justification of democracy highlight how little we know about democracy and its relationship to seemingly allied ideals such as openness, inclusion, representation, accountability. Indeed, it is unclear that our understanding of an open and inclusive society can be given sufficient meaning for Peircean arguments about democracy until we understand the relationship between openness, democracy and laws on intellectual property, privacy, hate speech, Holocaust denial and pornography.

20The appeal of Peircean arguments for democracy is that they speak to important questions about the justification of democracy, in ways that highlight the importance of history, economics and politics to philosophy. The flip side of that appeal, however, is the need to acknowledge the constraints that such dependence places on the types of philosophical claims we can make and defend. Those constraints are not reasons to abandon the effort to justify democracy, or to reject epistemic efforts to do so. But they are reasons to doubt that there are special advantages to epistemic justifications of democracy as compared to moral or political ones, and to suspect that an idea that can be fruitfully described as epistemic for some purposes can fruitfully be redescribed as metaphysical for others. Whether our interests in truth give us reasons to support democracy, then, is a good question. It is a question worth examining whether we understand it as a question about epistemology, metaphysics, morality or politics.