Reflection on the possibility of an epistemic dimension in ethics and democracy

Abstract

This paper examines the possibility of an epistemic dimension in ethics and democracy, taking as its point of departure Jürgen Habermas’s question concerning the epistemic status of democratic procedures in contemporary societies marked by communicative distortions. In a context increasingly shaped by digital media and the proliferation of narratives immune to moral and normative testing, the integration between discourse and action becomes a decisive philosophical demand. Drawing on the pragmatist tradition, particularly the philosophies of Charles S. Peirce, John Dewey, and others, the study argues that ethics and democracy are normative domains grounded in experience and inferential practices, rather than in metaphysical or purely procedural foundations. By recovering Peirce’s conception of normative sciences and his doctrine of synechism, the paper challenges the modern dichotomies between fact and value, cognition and normativity. It is argued that the rational acceptability of actions within a community, understood as a fallibilist and non-coercive process, could sustain the epistemic dimension of moral and democratic norms. In this sense, the epistemic character of democracy is not derived from substantive truths but from the rational continuity of practices oriented toward mutual recognition and the coercion of better arguments.