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Robert B. Talisse, A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy.

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Robert B. Talisse, A Pragmatist Philosophy of Democracy (New York: Routledge, 2007), x + 166 pp.

In this book, Robert Talisse argues for a two-part thesis: (a) John Dewey's pragmatism includes a substantive conception of democracy that cannot accommodate "reasonable pluralism," and hence it is oppressive to some, and (b) Charles Peirce's pragmatism can be used for a substantive epistemic account of democracy that can accommodate reasonable pluralism and hence is not oppressive (23). Although, as is well known, Dewey wrote extensively on democracy (while Peirce did not), Talisse tries to reconstruct a pragmatist view of democracy based not on Dewey's political theory, but rather on Peirce's scientific method. This is proposed as an alternative to John Rawls's proceduralist (nonsubstantive) account of democracy, which, although not oppressive of reasoned disagreements, is, according to Talisse, too normatively thin and therefore, at best, incomplete as a proper democratic theory.

The book has four major parts. The first is an attempt to recount some of the many distinct theories that go by the name of pragmatism (from Peirce's to Rorty's) with the intent of showing that there is no such thing as "classical pragmatism" (since Talisse claims that from Peirce onward there has been a "broadening ... of pragmatism's domain, an inflation of the philosophical commitments constitutive of pragmatism" (18)). Hence, Talisse concludes in this first part, there can be no such thing as a "revival" of classical pragmatism, nor of its defense against its being "corrupted" or "misappropriated" by "neo-pragmatists" such as Rorty (21). (1) Having argued that there is no "pragmatism per se or in general," Talisse then embarks on his project, which is to take "crucial insights in Peirce's work" to develop his own "Peircean" political theory (ibid.).

The second part focuses on Dewey's "deeply flawed" views on democracy, which render it (following Rawls's concerns about the possibility of "reasonable pluralism" in a political system that is too "comprehensive") "nonviable in practice" (23). The third part, comprised of the third and fourth chapters, covers Talisse's "Peircean" account derived from Peirce's method of inquiry as expressed in his "The Fixation of Belief" paper. In this paper, Peirce traces the process of inquiry, described as the transition from a state of doubt ("[an] uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves ... [that] guide[s] our desires and shape[s] our actions") to a state of belief ("[a] calm and satisfactory state which we do not wish to avoid"). (2) Peirce then proceeds to identify the four distinct ways in which we "fix" our beliefs: the method of tenacity, in which belief is preserved by stubbornly holding on to one's beliefs against all counterevidence; the method of authority, where belief is enforced by a social institution; the a priori method, where belief is fixed by seeking out those beliefs that are "agreeable to reason"; and the superior method of science, which is the only method that recognizes that external reality should guide our beliefs, and is therefore the one that is the most promising in terms of attaining true beliefs.

Talisse identifies Peirce's thesis here as the claim that "we cannot deliberately and self-consciously inquire in any way but the scientific way," since "on the Peircean view, to say that a...

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