Innerarity (political science and social philosophy, U. of the Basque Country, Spain) connects "knowledge" and "democracy" conceptually, arguing that knowledge and related fields (e.g., the politics of science and innovation, the advice given to governments, the assessment of public policy, the understanding of current social transformation, or the cognitive competence of regulators) are the spheres in which democratic quality is determined. He explores the idea in more detail in chapters concerned with overburdened intelligence or the challenge of managing an excess of possibilities in the political sphere; the collective organization of uncertainty as the most important political task; the cognitive challenge of the economy (which he believes the recent financial crisis to epitomize) and the need for an economy for an incalculable world; and the replacement of traditional education ideals with the ideal of creativity, defined as the ability to modify expectations when they are contradicted by reality. Bloomsbury Academic is an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing. Annotation ©2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
This volume in the Political Theory and Contemporary Philosophy series extends democracy to knowledge in two ways. First, it argues that the issues science seeks to clarify are relevant for all citizens. Second, it explains that the fundamental problems faced by any democracy, such as the economic crisis, are not so much problems of political will as cognitive failures that must be resolved through both a greater knowledge of the realities over which we govern and a fine-tuning of the tools of governance. In fact, knowledge and related fields are spheres in which not only economic prosperity, but also democratic quality, are determined. Thus politics of knowledge and through knowledge has become a question of democratic citizenship.
After introducing the concept of governing knowledge, the book discusses the political action of collective organization of uncertainty, before developing the idea of the cognitive challenge of the economy, revealed by today's economic crisis. A groundbreaking work by a renowned philosopher, it will be an accessible and fundamental resource for anyone interested in the relation of power to knowledge.
