META-POLITICAL COGNITIVISM AND THE PLACE OF TRUTH IN POLITICS
META-POLITICAL COGNITIVISM AND THE PLACE OF TRUTH IN POLITICS

Summary/Abstract: In this paper I discuss how the need for defining truth in a political context retains its importance even in the light of the insistence from political realists that such attempts will necessarily fail.1 I mention two debates in the political philosophy that intersect at this issue. The first is the dispute between those who, like Rawls, adhere to epistemic agnosticism and deny that we can have an operational definition of truth in politics and those who, following Habermas, argue that our political propositions always have truth values. The second debate is that between political moralists and political realists. I then try to show why both realists and moralists need to amend their views in order to fully take into account the complexities of the political domain. Moralists need to recognize that the realists are correct in denying the effective applicability of general moral principles, while realists err in thinking that moral principles in politics must only be general in nature. By incorporating the possibility of particularism in politics we can also find the plausible candidate for the operational view of the concept of truth – the pragmatist conception as elucidated by William James. This can then help us develop more meta-political cognitivism more fully and apply it to a wide range of issues in political philosophy, one of the most important being the efficacy of deliberative democracy.

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