Two extreme philosophical positions pose a constant threat to democracy. Those who believe in the certainty of their beliefs (totalitarianism) and those who deny the existence of any truth (nihilism and post-modernity) uphold these anti-democratic positions. Squeezed between these two polarities we find liberal democracy. One of the distinctive properties of liberal democracy is its endorsement of a political definition of scepticism. The aim of this article is to explore the relationship between liberal democracy and scepticism.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
BarryB. (1995), Justice as Impartiality, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
2.
BarberB. (1984), Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age, Berkeley: University of California Press.
3.
BeethamD. (ed.) (1994), Defining and Measuring Democracy, London: Sage.
4.
BeitzC. (1989), Political Equality, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
5.
BotwinickA. (1990), Scepticism and Political Participation, Philadelphia, Penn.: Temple University Press.
6.
DahlR. (1989), Democracy and Its Critics, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
7.
DworkinR. (1983), ‘What Liberalism Isn't’, The New York Review of Books, January 20.
8.
DworkinR. (1985), ‘Liberalism’ in his A Matter of Principle, Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp. 59–79.
9.
DworkinR. (1986), Law's Empire, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
10.
DworkinR. (1996), ‘Objectivity and Truth: You'd Better Believe It’, Philosophy and Public Affairs25(2), pp. 87–139.
11.
FriedrichC.J.BrzezinskiZ.K. (1966), Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (2nd edn, rev.FriedrichC.J.), New York: Prager.
12.
FriedrichC.J.CurtisM.BarberB. (1969), Totalitarianism in Perspective: Three Views, New York: Praeger.
13.
GraylingA.C. (1991), ‘Testing Notions of Knowledge’, Times Literary Supplement, 6 September.
14.
GutmannA.ThompsonD. (1996), Democracy and Disagreement, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
15.
HatabL.J. (1995) A Nietzschean Defense of Democracy, Chicago: Open Court.
16.
HonderichT. (ed.) (1995) The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
17.
JonesP. (1990), ‘Rushdie, Race and Religion’, Political Studies38(4), pp. 687–694.
18.
JonesP. (1998), ‘Political Theory and Cultural Diversity’, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy1(1), pp. 28–62.
19.
LomP.(forthcoming), The Limits of Doubt, New York: State University of New York.
20.
LyotardJ.F. (1984), The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Minneapolis, Minn.: University of Minnesota Press.
21.
MacIntyreA. (1981), After Virtue, London: Duckworth.
22.
MillJ.S. (1989), ‘On Liberty’ in ColliniS. (ed.), J.S. Mill – On Liberty and Other Essays, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
23.
NussbaumM. (1997), ‘Is Nietzsche a Political Thinker?’, International Journal of Philosophical Studies5(1), pp. 1–14.
24.
OakeshottM. (1996), The Politics of Faith and The Politics of Scepticism, New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.
25.
PopperK. (1988), ‘The Open Society and its Enemies Revisited’, The Economist, 23–29 April, pp. 25–27.
26.
PrzeworskiA. (1993), ‘Democracy as a Contingent Outcome of Conflicts’ in ElsterJ.SlagstadR. (eds.) Constitutionalism and Democracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 59–80.
27.
RawlsJ. (1972), A Theory of Justice, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
28.
SawardM. (1997), The Terms of Democracy, Cambridge: Polity.
