Dear Colleagues,
Knowledge in Crisis is hosting its next public event on 21 February at the Billrothhaus.
Please check out the details & register
here<https://events.ceu.edu/2024-02-21/why-do-we-disagree-about-politics…es>.
Why Do We Disagree About Politics?
The Role of Knowledge in Democratic Societies
Panel Discussion and Reception
21 February 2024
19:30 - 22:00
Billrothhaus | Frankgasse 8, 1090 Wien
Doors open at 19:00. Registration required.
"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
decisionmaking? 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, Rector Emeritus at 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.
All the best,
Jason Means
Jason Means, MA
Director of Management and Transfer
FWF Cluster of Excellence Knowledge in Crisis
Department of Philosophy
Pronouns: He/Him
[cid:image001.jpg@01DA52AC.767EB980]
+43 1 25230 7538
LinkedIn<https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-d-means/>