Conclusion

Abstract

Abstract This conclusion provides an overview of the book’s epistemic justification of democracy and how it provides a robust response to the new democratic scepticism. It restates how the epistemic abilities of democracy are only produced through the interaction of many different institutions, and how they are therefore dependent on taking a systemic perspective. While any one democratic institution cannot possibly possess epistemic values superior to all of its alternatives, a systemic approach can identify divisions of labour and emergent properties which produce epistemic values at the system level. The conclusion also discusses the interdisciplinary nature of this systemic model and the ways it builds on the problems and critiques of the sceptics. It then ends by considering possible ways of improving the intelligence of contemporary democracies and discusses promising new developments, such as the increasing experimentation with more permanent and influential uses of sortition and random selection.