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The public good: knowledge as the foundation for a democratic society

Dædalus Winter 2009 While we have much to celebrate, our democracy needs continuing attention.1 We might well take the view that it needs more attention now than it has in some time. Consider the terms “the public good,” “knowledge,” and “a democratic society,” for example. Who could possibly be opposed, in principle, to these concepts? But they are incomplete as we have assembled them and require a deeper foundation worthy of serious discussion. Let’s start with knowledge. A professor of philosophy in my undergraduate years once said that in answering an examination question on topic X it is never wrong to begin by saying, “That depends on what you mean by X.” Indeed, any discussion of knowledge does depend on what you mean by knowledge. Even without plunging into a deep discussion of epistemology and post-epistemological views of what the term might mean, we would almost certainly wish to question the role in a democratic society of what a good many people would insist on calling knowledge. What, for example, about divine revelation? Our democracy protects the right of people to believe in divine revelation and to regard that revelation as knowledge. But some of the most contentious issues before this country today are rooted in clashes over whether what some regard as divinely revealed knowledge can be the foundation for laws that must be obeyed by everyone in a democracy. And no one viewing the history of Christianity should feel entitled to single out Islam or any other religion for criticism in this context. Don Michael Randel