Panel Discussion: Why Do We Disagree About Politics?

“Democracy is a mechanism for distributing knowledge about matters of public interest, allowing us to decide which politicians should govern.” This popular view paints the picture that a politician's role is to inform voters about what is in our best interest. Losing elections, then, must be the result of ineffective communication: “If only we'd managed to get our message across to people properly”, the story goes, “then they would have seen why they had to vote for us!”

This picture clearly falls short of the messy reality of politics. But why? Does it portray an overly rationalistic picture of the democratic process? Is this picture overly idealistic? Does it overestimate the importance of (conveying) knowledge in democratic decision-making? Does it overestimate the potential for people to know what is in their best interest? How can we even determine what a person's “best interest” truly is?

Speakers:

Michael Ignatieff (Historian, former politician, former Rector of Central European University)

Oliver Traldi (Philosopher at Princeton University, author of the forthcoming book Political Beliefs)

Åsa Wikforss (Philosopher at Stockholm University, member of the Swedish Academy, Director of the Knowledge Resistance project)

The discussion will be moderated by Eva Stanzl, journalist at the Wiener Zeitung.

Date: 21 February 2024

Time: 7:30 – 10 p.m.

Location: Billrothhaus, Frankgasse 8, 1090 Wien

The discussion will be held in English. 

The event is part of the Knowledge in Crisis Cluster of Excellence which brings together 33 philosophers from a variety of backgrounds to critically investigate problems about the relationship between knowledge, truth, science, ethics and politics; and ultimately, our relationship to reality itself.