Knowledge is more important than intuition
We live in a democratic knowledge society, but there is still room for improvement. According to associate professor Anne-Marie Eggert Olsen from the Department of Educational Philosophy, life would be easier if democracy played a reduced role and rational politics were allowed to take over some more.
By Claus Holm (clho@dpu.dk)
The flowers are shaking on Plato's grave. The reason? He is laughing so hard down in Hades we can hear him all the way up here. To Plato, we are being utterly ridiculous when we let all manner of issues be determined politically. When we pass laws on what people would wear on their heads, about human sexuality and about the behaviour of youths, we not only incur Plato's ridicule, but also a certain amount of frowns and anxiety. This because it is not only irrational, but downright stupid to let ourselves end up in a situation where so much depends on politics. He would argue that we ought to reduce the realm of politics and dissent and rather leave the field to upbringing, education, knowledge and expertise.
A Plato-inspired social critique would run along those lines. The analysis would seem to advocate a society run by an elite, by experts. Quarterly asked associate professor and Plato-expert Anne-Marie Eggert Olsen about the interplay between politics and knowledge.
Sages or bringers of doom
"Our current problem is that politics all too often ignore common sense," says Anne-Marie Eggert Olsen. One example is when the Danish Prime Minister explains his decision to send Denmark to war in Iraq by telling us that his conscience bade him do it. "This is enough to turn me into a critical meritocrat, and make me insist that politics should be based on insight and on genuine knowledge, and not on some random gut feeling," Anne-Marie Eggert Olsen says.
It used to be that philosophers were afraid that experts would bring doom because they would ignore the limitations in their expertise, but the main threat today is something else entirely. Today, the greatest danger may come from the opposite, from the 'ignorantocracy' – fire the experts, and replace them with users, amateurs and lay people.
Can contemporary citizens' training to become socially and democratically active mean that government institutions are overburdened by all that public interest?
"Indeed yes. I for one have serious doubts that the growing application of participant democracy is actually an advantage for us. Plato insisted on a strong bond between reason and politics, but we have stopped insisting that politics should be based on education and reason. Instead we as individuals become over-zealous and believe we absolutely have to have an opinion about everything," says Anne-Marie Eggert Olsen.
Elitism sans idiocy
According to Anne-Marie Eggert Olsen, Plato's conception of knowledge as a justified true belief is under fire. This is no trifling matter, since this view of knowledge has been dominant in the Western world since Antiquity. This is an interpretation of knowledge that includes certain requirements, as opposed to just an opinion. Anne-Marie Eggert Olsen explains:
"If you know something, you have certainty. The two are inseparable. You can't say that you know something but that you aren't certain about it. The symbiotic nature of knowledge and certainty makes it far more difficult to change your knowledge than merely changing your opinion about something. Knowledge doesn't change. Of course, we know things in different ways: That two and two equals four, that the Earth is round, that there are two bottles of beer in the fridge, that you can trust your children. These all represent different types of knowledge. My point is that no matter the underlying reason for your knowledge, there is a degree of certainty attached to each bit of knowledge. This implies that there are limits to what we can know with a reasonable degree of certainty. Plato's knowledge is based on professional knowledge; that of the craftsman, who would know with a high degree of certainty how to approach a given task. Once in a while the certainty lets him down, and he will realise that a mistake has been made, but the point is he is more than just a handyman who thinks he knows how to fix this, that and the other problem."
Will this view lead to elitism and experts ruling society?
"No, not in and of itself. First of all, knowledge is always knowledge about something. It is not merely an individual experience, but something that can be exchanged, validated and authorised among people through such measures as education and exams. But thereby follow requirements to rational arguments. You have to present a general argument for your knowledge, one that I in principle can understand and profit from. This is where our dependency on experts enters the picture. There is an objective difference between knowing something, and not knowing something. It is not necessarily better – plus, it is different what we do know," says Anne-Marie Eggert Olsen.
In our democracy, we tend to say that we should be governed by laymen, and not by political experts. Plato, on the other hand, felt that an education was necessary for someone to assume a political position. Wouldn't the natural consequence be an elitist approach to politics?
"Elitism occurs, almost automatically, when the concept of science enters the political debate. Knowledge is anti-democratic. In Plato's ideal state, those who govern should be 'experts in the general'. But when we talk about knowledge of the general, we transcend the limitations in professional knowledge. Plato says that a good regent should either be a philosopher, or should study philosophy. This would imply that ministers should master general observations concerning what would be best for society as a whole. They must take care of the common good, rather than the interests of a minority or a marginal majority. This is where Plato becomes decidedly un-democratic, if we take 'democracy' to mean a compromise between interests or certain voting procedures. In these cases, democracy is unprofessional and in fact also a-political, if we by 'political' refer to the common," she says.
The state must provide stability
Democracy is like a beautiful garment full of many things. This is how Plato described democracy, which he considered the least inadequate among the available options for a political system. But when he analysed democracy in terms of the rational meeting the political, democracy turned out to be a very poor choice: Far from the common good, largely inefficient and full of injustice.
According to Anne-Marie Eggert Olsen, Plato was not aiming for the just state as an objective in itself, but rather for the happiness that just application of power can bring to the state and to the individual. In The Republic, which is set in old Cephalus' house, Socrates asks of Cephalus whether he, old man that he is, has understood justice. Cephalus replies that justice is to give to each his due, because the consequence of doing so is that you will not wake up like a child from a nightmare when you think about Hades. Cephalus' fearless approach to death, however, Plato turns into a guiding principle for every day in his life. A sound sleep presupposes that we can be confident that reason is in ourselves, in others and not least in politics.
"A good night's sleep sounds very nice and all, and I would be ever so pleased to absolve myself of the responsibility and worries that stem from so many political decisions, if I had accepted the principles that guided the choices. But I haven't. The consequence is that we refuse to give up our political influence because we have no faith in the power of reason in our society – despite Plato's recommendation. This mistrust is part of the reason why we participate in democracy with such scepticism. We have ample reason not to believe that politicians have the common good at heart. They quite simply lack the necessary education for that."
Anne-Marie Eggert OlsenAssistant professor at the Department of Educational Philosophy at the Danish School of Education. Currently working on a Carlsberg research grant on a project called: 'Political reasoning between ethics and national interests. A survey of Plato's political philosophy and its historical impact'. Her particular area of interest is the relationship between individual and state in Plato, with a particular emphasis on the ideal of the 'mixed constitution', in the soul and in the state, and the fate of this ideal throughout the history of political philosophy.
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