Truth over Democracy or Democracy over Truth?

Abstract

Paul Feyerabend and Richard Rorty were both famously suspicious of an objective concept of truth, in part because they shared the suspicion that concepts like truth and reason were irrevocably anti-democratic. As Feyerabend saw it, an overreliance on a naive objectivist conception of truth and rationality encouraged a “tyranny of truth”, one according to which science should have an overly privileged role to play in deciding what society ought to do. Similarly, Rorty believed truth was a concept ill-suited for democracy. In this paper, I offer some brief reflections on the view that political truth is ill-suited for democratic politics. I argue that Rorty and Feyerabend are right that the concepts of truth and knowledge have political meaning, and that as a result, the question of “who knows” (and who doesn't) are partly political questions. But while Feyerbеnd was right to think we cannot give priority to the epistemic over the political in democracy, neither, I conclude, should we reverse that priority.