Description
Expressing the political anxieties of our moment, the term 'technocracy' has become increasingly popular in political discourse. Largely orthogonal to the debate on technocracy, the connate term 'epistocracy' (i.e., rule of the knowers) has made its fortune in normative democratic theory due to the rise in popularity of epistemic theories of democracy (Gauss 1996; Anderson 2007; Estlund 2008; Landemore 2013; Peter 2023). These theories have developed increasingly sophisticated normative political epistemologies, arguing that ""epistemic success"" (i.e. the extent to which political decisions, procedures, or institutions realize, or are reliably oriented towards the achievement of some epistemic good that is relevant to political decision-making) is either a necessary or even a sufficient condition to ground political legitimacy and/or authority. Epistemic democrats thus go against the grain of traditional approaches which ground political legitimacy solely upon fairness, equality, or self-authorship.Epistemic theories suffer from unresolved questions. First, except for Jason Brennan (2016), the literature lacks a systematic conceptualization of epistocracy. While epistocracy is frequently invoked by epistemic democrats as a negative contrast, it often functions implicitly rather than as a fully theorized position (Estlund 2008; Landemore, 2022). Epistocracy plays a crucial boundary-setting role: it marks the point at which epistemic considerations are taken to unduly override equality or fairness, thereby rendering a theory of legitimacy incompatible with democratic norms. Second, the metaethical dimension of epistemic democratic theories remains underdeveloped. What constitutes epistemic success is often underspecified, even though it does significant work. Epistemic democrats frequently argue that one cannot have an “epistemically abstinent” normative theory since non-epistemic values such as fairness or equality presuppose epistemic claims (Talisse 2009). However, the precise sense in which non-epistemic considerations have an epistemic character, and how this affects their normative significance, is rarely made explicit. Thirdly, clarifying these metaethical commitments is crucial because they determine the boundary between epistemic democracy and epistocracy. How demanding one’s notion of truth or epistemic success is, and how it relates to other democratic values, will shape how epistemic considerations ground legitimacy.
In this workshop, we seek to delve deeper into the meta-normative commitments of epistemic democracy and explore the relation between knowledge and political normativity. This should provide a venue for epistemic democrats to clarify these commitments and an opportunity for its critics to sharpen their criticism. This workshop will tackle the following questions:
1. Can knowledge ground political legitimacy? Should it?
2. What is the relation between epistemic considerations and non-epistemic democratic considerations at the level of normative justification? Can there be a strict demarcation between epistemic and non-epistemic considerations? Are democratic values simply a species of epistemic value or distinct from the latter? If so, when do epistemic and democratic values diverge or conflict and what should we do when they conflict?
3. What counts as ""epistemic success"" and how demanding should it be? What are the different ways in which truth enters political justification? Are there more benign and less benign ways from a democratic standpoint?
4. What is epistocracy and why might it be dangerous? What core normative and metaethical commitments constitute an epistocratic theory?
Wednesday 2nd September
11:30-13:00 Registration
12:30-14:00 Lunch
14:00-16:00 Session 1
Joshua Clarke and Roger Ventura Cossin (KU Leuven): The normative structure of epistocratic justification. Part I.
Joshua Clarke and Roger Ventura Cossin (KU Leuven): The normative structure of epistocratic justification. Part II.
16:00-16:30 Tea and Coffee Break (optional)
16:30-17:30 Session 1 (continued)
Paul Gunn (Goldsmiths - University of London): What counts as "success" in epistemic political theory? On the possibilities and limits of political competence
17:45-19:00 Wine Reception
19:30 Conference Dinner
Thursday 3rd September
9:30-11:30 Session 2
Simmo Kylonnen and Ninni Suni (Helsinki University): Epistemic political authority: a mission impossible
Mathis Nicole Desmau (University of Lyon): Against Belief-Based Conceptions of Political Legitimacy
11:30-12:00 Tea and Coffee Break (optional)
12:00-13:00 Session 2 (continued)
Santiago Favière (EHESS Paris): Epistocracy, Epistemic Democracy, and Climate Change Governance
13:00-14:00 Lunch
14:00-16:00 Session 3
Xintong Wei (American University of Armenia): Can There Be Epistemic Democracy Without Mass Participation?
Giacomo Sbrozi (Antwerp University): Is Mass Democracy Societally Wasteful?
Rethinking the Epistemic Case for Large Electorates
16:00-16:30 Tea and Coffee Break (optional)
16:30-17:30 Session 3 (continued)
Marie-Kristin Reisch (University of Vienna): Are We Still Fit for Democracy?
Rethinking Democratic Competence in Times of Regression
Friday 4th September
10:30-11:30 Session 4
Brian Kogelmann (Purdue University): The Varieties of Political Ignorance
11:30-12:00 Tea and Coffee Break (optional)
12:00-13:00 Session 4 (continued)
Jonathan Benson (University of Manchester): Epistemic Democracy and Diversity: the possibility of a robustness approach.
13:00-14:00 Lunch
14:00-16:00 Session 5
Susan Dielman (University of Lethbridge): “Getting Things Right” with Rorty
Rafael Ruiz-de-Lira-Manzano (LSE): Appealing to Moral Expert Consensus for Morally Progressive Policymaking
16:00-16:30 Tea and Coffee Break (optional)
16:30 End of Conference
| Period | 2 Sept 2026 → 4 Sept 2026 |
|---|---|
| Event title | MANCEPT Workshops 2026 |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Manchester, United KingdomShow on map |