Gary R- that's an interesting topic. 1) I'd like to first comment that democracy, as a political system for arriving at authoritative government decisions, is the 'right' method but ONLY in a very large population with a growth economy and a growth population. That is, political systems have FUNCTIONS; the function is: who has the societal right to make decisions among this population?
In economies which are no-growth, such as all the pre-industrial agricultural and horticultural economies which dominated the planet until the industrial age, democracy is dysfunctional. That is, all political systems must privilege the wealth-producing sectors of the population. If your economy is agricultural/horticultural - which can only produce enough wealth to support a steady-state or no-growth population, then, the political system must put the authority to make decisions in the control of the owners of wealth production; i.e., the landowners. This control over the land must be hereditary [you can't have fights over ownership], and limited [you can't split up the land into minuscule small farms]. Democracy, which puts decision-making into the hands of the majority, doesn't work in such an economy. When the economy moves to a growth mode [and enables a growth population], the political system must empower those sectors of the population which make an economy grow. This is the middle class - a non-hereditary set of the population, made up of private individual/small group businesses. This economic mode is highly flexible [new business can start, succeed, fail]; extremely adaptable and enables rapid population growth. As such an economic mode, political decision-making must fall into the control of this middle class - and we have the emergence of elected legislatures and the disappearance of hereditary authority. For a growth economy to work, it must support individual rights [to invent, differ from the norm, to succeed AND fail] so that failure, for example, will only affect those few individuals and not a whole village/collective. Therefore, individualism must be stressed and empowered; a growth economy must enable novelty, innovation, freedom of the periphery....as well as success, which is measured by the adoption by the collective of that product/service. FOR A WHILE. 2) But - it seems that the definition and function of democracy in Dewey does not deal with the economy and the questions of the production of wealth and size of population. Instead, it deals with social issues - Talisse writes: "The core of Deweyan democracy can be stated as follows. Deweyan democracy is substantive rather than proceduralist, communicative rather than aggregative,and deep rather than statist. I shall take these contrasts in order.Deweyan democracy is substantive insofar as it rejects any attempt to separate politics and deeper normative concerns. More precisely, Dewey held that the democratic political order is essentially a moral order, and, further, he held that democratic participation is an essential constituent ofthe good life and a necessary constituent for a “truly human way of living”.... Dewey rejects the idea thatit consists simply in processes of voting, campaigning, canvassing, lobbying, and petitioning in service of one’s individual preferences; that is, Dewey held democratic participation is essentially communicative, it consists in the willingness of citizens to engage in activity by which they may “convince and be convinced by reason” (MW 10:404) and come to realize“values prized in common” (LW 13:71). The above seems to me, to be a social relations account - and doesn't deal with the fact that democracy as a political system, empowers a particular segment of the population - the middle class, in an economy based around individual private sector small businesses. It has nothing to do with 'the good life' or a 'truly human way of living'. Nomadic pastoralists, and land-based feudal agriculture were also 'human ways of living. 3) From the Stanford Encyclopaedia, I found the following on Dewey: "As Dewey puts it, ‘men are not isolated non-social atoms, but are men only when in intrinsic relations’ to one another, and the state in turn only represents them ‘so far as they have become organically related to one another, or are possessed of unity of purpose and interest’ (‘The Ethics of Democracy’,EW1, 231-2). Dewey is anti-elitist, and argues that the capacity of the wise few to discern the public interest tends to be distorted by their position. Democratic participation is not only viewed as a bulwark against government by elites, but also as an aspect of individual freedom– humanity cannot rest content with a good ‘procured from without.’ Furthermore, democracy is not ‘simply and solely a form of government’, but a social and personal ideal; in other words, it is not only a property of political institutions but of a wide range of social relationships. The above, seems to me, at this first glimpse, to totally ignore the economic mode - and again, some economies whose wealth production rests in stable, no-growth methods [land food production] MUST ensure the stability of this economy by confining it to the few, i.e., those elites'...the wise few if you want to call them that'. That is - the to put power in the majority/commonality rests with the economic mode. Certainly, Peirce's community of scholars was a method of slowly, gradually, arriving at 'the truth'. But this has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with governance and the question of who in a collective has the ultimate authority to make political decisions. That is, political decisions are not really, I suggest, the same as scientific or 'truth-based' inquiries. There is no ultimate 'best way' for much is dependent on resources, population size, environment.. And, I don't see a focus on the required capacity of a growth economy for rapid flexible adaptation - which HAS to be focused around the individual. That is, risk-taking shouldn't involve the WHOLE collective, but only a few individuals. 4) As for Peirce's philosophy of democracy - again, Talisse writes: "the Peircean view relies upon no substantive moral vision. The Peircean justifies democratic institutions and norms strictly in terms of a set of substantive epistemic commitments. It says that no matter what one believes about the good life, the nature of the self, the meaning of human existence, or the value of community, one has reason to support a robust democratic political order of the sort described above simply in virtue of the fact that one holds beliefs. Since the Peircean conception of democracy does not contain a doctrine about “the one, ultimate, ethical ideal of humanity” (EW 1:248), it can duly acknowledge the fact of reasonable pluralism. p 112 This seems to suggest that a societal system that enables exploratory actions by individuals is a 'robust democracy'. And, since a growth economic mode, that can support growth populations, requires risk-taking by flexible individuals to deal with current pragmatic problems - then, this seems to be a stronger political system. My key point is that the political system, economic mode and population size are intimately related. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Gary Richmond To: Peirce-L Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2016 2:59 PM Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce and Democracy List, I read Robert B. Talisse's A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy (2007) a few year ago and was thinking of it again today, in part prompted by an op-ed piece in The New York Times by Roger Cohen which quotes H. L. Mencken (see below). At the time of my reading PPD, I was not at all convinced that Talisee had demonstrated his principal thesis, namely, that we ought replace the inadequate, in his opinion, Dewyan approach to thinking about democracy with a Peircean based approach. This is how David Hildebrand (U. of Colorado) outlined Talisse's argument in a review in The Notre Dame Philosophical Review. http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23707-a-pragmatist-philosophy-of-democracy/ [Hildebrand] As I read PPD, I kept returning to two fundamental propellants powering Talisse's argument for a Peircean-based democratic theory. The first is constructive: his quest for a lean, non-normative pragmatist inquiry to provide just enough of a philosophical basis for a broadly effective conception of democracy. The second is destructive: the argument that political theorists should reject Dewey's self-refuting philosophy of democracy. Taken together, the insight is this: get over Dewey and accept this particular Peirce and we get just what we need from pragmatism for the purposes of democracy. Hildebrand's review is a good introduction to the PPD. While I'm not much of a Deweyan, and I wouldn't presume to argue for or against his ideas, yet I don't think Talisse makes a strong case for a Peircean approach to political theory on democracy,. I should add, however, that Talisse is, in my opinion, a very good thinker and an excellent writer. Besides this book, over the years I've read a number of his scholarly articles and heard him speak in NYC and elsewhere. PPD is definitely worth reading, while those with a Deweyan democracy bent will probably find themselves arguing with him nearly point for point (as Hildebrand pretty much does). On the other hand, the concluding chapter on Sidney Hook is valuable in its own right. As Talisse writes: Hook's life stands as an inspiring image of democratic success; for success consists precisely in the activity of political engagement by means of public inquiry. I haven't got my e-CP available, so I can't locate references, but it seems to me that Peirce's view of democracy as I recall it is, if not nearly anti-democratic (I vaguely recall some passages in a letter to Lady Welby), it may at least be closer to H. L. Mencken's: As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. I doubt that a discussion of PPD would be very valuable, but it might be interesting to at least briefly reflect on Peirce's views of democracy. As I recall,he hasn't much to say about democracy in what's published in the CP and the other writings which have been made available to us. Perhaps more will be uncovered in years to come as his complete correspondence is published in W (I probably won't be alive for that as I understand that it will probably be the last or near last volume in W, and at the snail's pace the W is moving. . .) Meanwhile, can anyone on the list offer some Peirce quotations which might help quickly clarify his views on democracy? I would, of course, hope that if there is some discussion here that we keep to a strictly theoretical discussion, especially in light of the strong feelings generated by the recent American presidential election. Best, Gary R st Philosophy of Democracy Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York C 745 718 482-5690 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
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