Deliberative epistemic instrumentalism, or something near enough

Abstract

In her book Democracy and Truth: The Conflict between Political and Epistemic Virtues, Snjezana Prijic Samarzija advocates a stance that not only political, but also epistemic values are necessary for justification of democracy. Specifically, she mounts defense for one particular type of public deliberation on epistemic grounds. In this paper, l will discuss the following issue: What connects this type of public deliberation to the wider context of (epistemic) justification of democracy? I will attempt to explain why Prijie Samarzija's stance can be understood as a version of deliberative epistemic instrumentalism and to discuss the role played by the public deliberation within this framework.