Political epistemology is concerned with how society is to deal with the problem of conflicting knowledge claims. What people take to be true has implications for themselves and others, and can lead to greater wellbeing or serious harm. A society’s system of governance needs to adopt a position on how the validity of claims is to be assessed if there is to be any collective means to determine what warrants belief, what is to be rejected as false, and what cannot be settled for the time being.
Although relatively little attention is paid to political epistemology, there are four de facto approaches that influence how society responds to disputes over veracity:
[1] Absolutism
The absolutist approach considers any dispute to be resolvable with one definitive answer that can be supplied by an unquestionable authority. As for who is to be designated the ‘absolute authority’, that is to be determined by those who can secure a sufficiently dedicated following. Under theocratic regimes, those who claim to speak for ‘God’ will present themselves as the ‘absolute authority’. Totalitarian regimes, from Marxist to Fascist ones, will hand the absolute position to the leader of their one-party state. Populist cults may regard the likes of Trump as the beacon of truth. While philosophers such as Plato would deem only those as wise as they to be qualified to be the ultimate authority.
[2] Scepticism
The sceptical approach declines to resolve any disputes over truth claims. It does not accept that there can be any basis for differentiating the veracity of any claim from any other. Whatever people believe, whatever happens as a result of their beliefs, it is simply how it is and there is no rational basis for repudiating any claim in favour of any other. Anarchists and laissez faire advocates embrace scepticism in their rejection of any overriding political rules and systems that may adjudicate between true and false, or right and wrong. People are to be left to believe and act as they wish, and no one has any authority to judge them for it.
[3] Relativism
The relativist approach leaves the issue of settling disputes to any group of people who would agree to a system of settling such disputes. If there were ten different groups each with their own system, then the decisions of each is correct relative to that group. There would be no scope for deciding which of the ten is correct, unless they all sign up to a system that will operate for all of them. Free marketeers thus want businesses to form their own voluntary rules and reject regulatory oversight. Nationalists want ‘their’ countries to do as they choose without being bound by any international law. And there are families that want to treat/mistreat their children in their own ways without any intervention from social services.
[4] Experimentalism
The experimentalist approach holds that claims are vacuous unless they assert something that is objectively discernible; and any objectively detectable feature can be checked in time through observation and investigation. The gathered findings can be tested experimentally through further examination of reports and evidence. Any system that can demonstrate its efficacy in carrying out experimental assessment of claims has to the extent the authority to be the adjudicator of conflicting claims in that field. Decisions are universally applicable, but they are also provisional in the sense that they could be revised, subject to future discovery of relevant evidence. Advancement of science and technology, legal reforms, development of techniques in arts and craft, all follow the experimentalist approach in testing, learning, and adapting to move gradually closer to more reliable ideas and practices.
In Conclusion
In politics, all too often we are taken in by absolutism, scepticism, or relativism, and end up allowing the most erroneous claims to steer policies that shape society. If we are to move forward in line with what genuinely warrants our belief, we cannot afford to shrug off epistemological questions. Instead, we should learn more about the experimentalist approach and apply it to how we want our society to be governed.
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For more on political epistemology, see What Should Citizens Believe:
(paperback version): https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Should-Citizens-Believe-Exploring/dp/1548183105
(kindle version): https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Should-Citizens-Believe-Exploring-ebook/dp/B07CSYRF8H
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