Democracy in the Post-Truth Era: Restoring Faith in Expertise

The world of post-truth is a world of intense disinformation, an offensive of pseudoscience and widespread scepticism about expert knowledge. It is a world in which the terms of the political game are imposed by illiberal democrats who undermine the authority of scientific institutions. The liberal-democratic politicians have had to take up the gauntlet thrown down to them in this way. However, according to the book's author, they have not been followed by liberal theorists. Liberal theorists have never attempted to confront the pessimistic vision of a world in which citizens cannot distinguish expert from pseudo-expert and science from pseudo-science. The dominant liberal theories are based on the assumption that citizens are either competent to participate in major political decisions or that they can easily acquire such competence. The book strikingly explores a very different perspective. How would the theory and practice of liberal democracy have to change if we assume that laypersons will never appreciate the relevance of the arguments put forward by experts?

Nicolaus Copernicus University

Janusz Grygieńc is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Philosophy at Nicolaus Copernicus University. He has published one monograph in English - General Will in Political Philosophy (Imprint Academic, 2013) and two in Polish - Democracy at the Crossroads (Universitas, Krak?w 2017) and Thomas Hill Green: From Epistemology to Political Philosophy (Europejskie Centrum Edukacyjne, 2009). He has also co-edited three edited collections in Polish - New Liberalism: A Reader (Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, 2016), Quentin Skinner (Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, 2016) and Horizons of Constructivism (Wydawnictwo Naukowe UMK, 2015).