Aron, Lippmann, and Liberal Political Epistemology
On the Implications of the Limits of Political Knowledge
Introductory Note: I will be in Nice next week to participate in the inaugural conference of the Institut fédératif de recherche en épistémologie (Federative Institute for Research in Epistemology) of the University of Côte d’Azur. I will give a talk titled “Two Pioneers of Liberal Political Epistemology and Their Contemporary Relevance: Aron and Lippmann.” I’ve not yet a paper, but the post below sketches the main ideas I’ll develop in the talk and in the article to come (hopefully) soon.
By “political epistemology,” I refer to the inquiry into the nature and characteristics of the forms of knowledge and beliefs that are relevant in the political domain, i.e., the sphere of human actions related to the use of coercive power in the organization of society. This encompasses several overlapping issues, in particular i) the role of (especially, but not only, scientific) truth for the justification of political institutions and actions, ii) the epistemic properties of various political mechanisms, especially democratic ones, to aggregate beliefs, judgments, and preferences, iii) the sources of political disagreement and the possibility of establishing a consensus of views regarding a minimal set of political issues. In general, political epistemology determines the kind of knowledge that can ground political action and the origins of political beliefs.
In this context, what would be a liberal political epistemology (LPE for short)? There are two alternative ways to characterize a LPE. On the one hand, from the question of what can be known and based on empirical facts how political agents form their beliefs, a LPE can argue that liberal political institutions are possible (in the sense of stable and justified) and, eventually, superior to alternative political institutions. On the other hand, a LPE may alternatively proceed from asking which kind of knowledge is required for liberal political institutions to be possible and then show that this knowledge can be achieved under specific conditions. Ideally, both approaches should converge. As I shall explain below, in practice liberals tend to emphasize that our political knowledge is fundamentally limited and that these limitations disqualify a range of non-liberal political institutions. The next step is then to argue that, in light of these limitations, a form or another of liberalism is commendable, if not required. Here, I focus on two liberal authors who broadly follow this argumentative scheme, though their epistemologies are otherwise fairly different.
Walter Lippmann. Public Opinion and Complexity
Walter Lippmann wrote two influential books in the 1920s forming the basis of his LPE, Public Opinion,[1] and The Fathom Public.[2] These books are themselves extensions of Lippmann’s previous work on journalism – Lippmann being himself a journalist. In his work on journalism, Lippmann argues that our epistemic access to reality is not direct but mediated through the work of journalists and the information published by newspapers. Almost all the things we know (or we think we know) about the world are actually the result of journalistic reports that are themselves often second-hand. The bottom line is that the beliefs and judgments of what Lippmann will later call the “public opinion” are not really theirs. They are the product of a process of mediation where the media, by selecting and framing the information that they report in a certain way, largely construct public opinion.
Public Opinion pushes the thesis a step further and starts to contemplate the political implications, something that will be more systematically done in The Fathom Public. Lippmann now argues that the impossibility of having a direct knowledge of reality is a more general feature of the human condition, especially for those living in complex societies where many relevant events happen miles away. The problem is not only that in practice most information individuals receive is not from first-hand observation. More fundamentally, humans’ perception of reality is done through what Lippmann calls stereotypes – a concept that Lippmann does not understand in the modern sense where it is more or less synonymous with “prejudices.” Stereotypes, says Lippmann, are “an ordered, more or less consistent picture of the world, to which our habits, our tastes, our capacities, our comforts and our hopes have adjusted themselves.”[3] Crucially, stereotypes are more than just the result of psychological biases and cognitive limitations. They reflect our values, our social position, and more generally who we are as a person-qua-moral-being.[4]
Stereotypes are at the same a cause and a response to the limits of our political knowledge. They are a cause because influence public opinion by giving a distorted and “moralized” perception of reality. There is no way this situation can be improved upon. Neither education nor a better provision of news by the media can do anything about this. On the other hand, there is no other way to navigate the complexity of the world than by relying on stereotypes. They are more than convenient heuristics. They are the very ground on which our moral judgments can take shape.
Lippmann draws several lessons from this basic epistemological theory. First, since we cannot form our vision of the world first-hand, we need to trust people to do for us – the only alternative is to live as a hermit. At the social level, that means that political and social institutions must provide a space for trustful actors whose responsibility is to convey a sense of reality that improves on our stereotypes. This is reflected in political decision-making, where society must be organized in such a way that small groups of experts or politicians make decisions on behalf of the rest of the population, what Lippmann calls the “Machine” in the American context. Second, Lippmann explicitly identifies a fundamental tension between the limits of political knowledge and the universal desire (at least in democratic societies) for self-governance. This is worth quoting Lippmann here:[5]
“Consciously or otherwise, [democratic philosophers] knew that the range of political knowledge was limited, that the area of self-government would have to be limited, and that self-contained states when they rubbed against each other were in the posture of gladiators. But they knew just as certainly, that there was in men a will to decide their own fate, and to find a peace that was not imposed by force. How could they reconcile the wish and the fact?”
As I will discuss below, Lippmann discerns a solution in the democratic-liberal tradition consisting of organizing society in such a way that people must mostly have to deal only with matters “close to them” – which basically means depoliticizing society by granting people civil and economic freedoms that divert them from political affairs. Third, Lippmann concludes on the impossibility of an “ideal democracy” as conceived by some of the American Founding Fathers in a complex society. The complexity of society makes it impossible to have a “popular” system of political governance where decisions are made by a mythical public opinion. This last point is developed further by Lippmann in The Fathom Public where he argues that public opinion is essentially a “force of reaction” unable to judge complex problems on a case-by-case basis. The best that public opinion can do is to recognize the merits of a whole system of moral and political rules and if political actors are effectively following these rules.[6]
Aron. Historical Consciousness and Political Knowledge
The intellectual roots of Raymond Aron’s political epistemology are very different from those of Lippmann. Aron’s views on these matters are essentially tributary to the neo-Kantian philosophical tradition Aron became acquainted with during his stay in Germany in the early 1930s. There, Aron read neo-Kantian philosophers such as Dilthey and Rickert and sociologists such as Weber and Mannheim whose epistemological views also have neo-Kantian roots. Aron’s thesis, published in 1938 under the title Introduction à la philosophie de l’histoire (Introduction to the Philosophy of History),[7] is a long exploration of the nature of historical knowledge that is prominently fed by these German intellectual resources. Hence, Aron’s entry into political epistemology is not through psychological or social theoretic considerations but is rather the consequence of his views about historical epistemology.
From neo-Kantian philosophers, Aron inherits a conception of historical knowledge that emphasizes the importance of understanding (verstehen) that singles out the fact that accounting for historical events involves interpreting these events by giving meaning to the individual actions that constitute them. To know is not only to decipher the causal nexus of historical events but also to understand the viewpoints and actions of historical actors. This is so because history is a complex web of events and actions that can only be explained by referring to values. First, values account for the behavior of political actors. Second, and more fundamentally, values are also what permit the historian to literally choose in the infinity of the historical material those events that are relevant.
Aron also inherited from the neo-Kantian tradition the view that values are essentially incommensurable. In the context of the historical inquiry, value pluralism entails that there is no rational argument to prefer a historical account over another. History is basically constructed on value judgments and since value judgments are mostly subjective, objective history is an impossibility. This has many implications that Aron explores in his book but that also permeates his whole intellectual production. The first implication is the firm rejection of determinist philosophies of history. By definition, determinist philosophies of history ignore the plurality of historical interpretations and contend that history is objectively moved toward an endpoint by impersonal forces. The second implication is more political. Already in the Introduction, Aron contends that an appropriate understanding of the “structure of human history” sets limits on the kind of politics that is permissible. In particular, the pluralistic dimension of human history defines the conditions under which political decisions can be made:[8]
“There is no more dangerously utopian doctrine than the one that gathers reasonable elements. Doing this, we grant us the right to compose an ideal society with pieces borrowed from a diversity of regimes, while we are oblivious to the fact that each social order has its pros and cons and that we have to choose between wholes. To the contrary, the totalitarian thought that would pretend to reduce society to a unique principle would succumb to an even more dangerous fanatism.”
Human history is complex due to the plurality of values. It resists any reduction to a single principle in light of which all historical events could be interpreted. To do so makes one culprit of “historical fanaticism,” a critique that Aron will later address to Nazi and communist ideologies – regarding the latter, at length in The Opium of the Intellectuals.[9]
The bridge between Aron’s historical and political epistemologies is the historical consciousness of humanity. Aron claims that knowledge of oneself of a person presupposes one’s knowledge of others and of the sociohistorical circumstances in which one evolves. Man is a historical being whose individuality is historically determined. Each individual choice is a reflection of one’s understanding of their history. As observers, our interpretation of history is interpreted by the plurality of interpretations that can be endorsed. As actors, our own actions communicate the partiality of our historical understanding. It follows that self-knowledge and sociohistorical knowledge are similarly limited. Historical consciousness is to be aware of these limitations and to understand how they carry to political action. The non-fanatic intellectual, whatever its ideological affiliation, acknowledges the limits of their knowledge. In politics, non-fanaticism entails the endorsement of the “politics of understanding,” a political ethics that gives up any ambition to articulate means and ends in a systematic whole emanating from a single set of absolute principles.
From Political Epistemology to Political Morality and Ethics
As I said above, a liberal political epistemology emphasizes the limits of political knowledge and draws the political implications. Both in their ways, Aron and Lippmann point out that the justification of political institutions and actions takes place in a context where what we know about the world, past, present, and future, is fairly limited. There are obvious differences between Aron’s and Lippmann’s political epistemologies, starting from the fact that they build on very different intellectual traditions. They nonetheless converge on significant aspects. The most significant is that both locate the diversity of ways the world is perceived in values. This is not – or not only – a matter of cognitive biases, heuristics, and bounded rationality, as behavioral economists and psychologists tend to emphasize nowadays. To put it emphatically, the way you perceive the world says a lot about who you are, what your beliefs about the good and the right are, and what you think matters and is important. In Aron’s political epistemology, perceptions are directly embedded into our historical consciousness. But history is also a source of a variety of stereotypes that ground the different “moral codes” that human societies follow.[10] A second point of convergence is the fundamental political lesson that Aron and Lippmann draw from their political epistemologies. Basically, acknowledging one’s political knowledge limitations encourages tolerance, as Aron observes at the end of The Opium of the Intellectuals:[11]
“Men are no short of occasions and reasons to kill each other. If tolerance is the daughter of doubt, we should teach people to doubt models and utopias, and to reject prophets of salvation and disasters. We should wish for the coming of skeptics if they are to shut down fanatism.”
Similarly, Lippman notes[12]
“It is only when we are in the habit of recognizing our opinions as a partial experience seen through our stereotypes that we become truly tolerant of an opponent.”
Interestingly, both Aron’s and Lippmann’s political epistemologies seem to imply that tolerance comes with a relative depoliticization of life. In the sentences that precede the quote above, Aron contemplates positively the possibility that intellectuals may become less interested in politics. Lippmann is even more radical, urging to strictly separate experts and political officials from the rest of the public and organizing society such as individuals essentially having to deal with private matters on which they have direct knowledge. That doesn’t mean that Aron and Lippmann have the same understanding of what depoliticization would involve,[13] though ultimately they endorse relatively similar views about the justification of a democratic-technocratic regime that is suspicious of popular sovereignty and where experts and technocrats enjoy some political autonomy – if not independence.[14]
The implications at the level of political morality and ethics of Aron’s and Lippmann’s political epistemologies are more complementary than convergent. Obviously, both endorse the political principles and institutions that have come to characterize modern liberal democracies: checks and balances, separation of powers, and the rule of law. Beyond that, Aron’s political epistemology mostly has implications for political ethics. What Aron calls the politics of understanding is a version of Weber’s ethics of responsibility. It calls for modesty, prudence, and open-mindedness in the political domain. As I suggest above, Lippmann’s harsh assessment of public opinion seems to militate for a social organization that discharges most individuals from political matters. In essence, Lippmann is giving an epistemic justification for the primacy of the “liberty of the moderns” over “the liberty of the ancients.” When dealing with private matters, individuals have an intimate knowledge of the issues at stake, something that is impossible in political affairs. Ultimately, while Lippmann argues that the limits of political knowledge necessitate to reduce the importance of politics in people’s lives, Aron’s rather bets on the revision of the political ethos. Of course, one doesn’t exclude the other.
Interestingly, none of this implies the classical liberal or even libertarian conclusions that economic rights should have more weight than political liberties or that the state should be kept at a minimal size. Both Aron and Lippmann’s political views, while liberal, were tilting toward the social democratic side of liberalism. A liberal political epistemology is therefore not necessarily “pro-market” or “anti-politics” (though it can surely be). To acknowledge the limits of political knowledge doesn’t entail eradicating politics, democracy, and the state. But it urges us to reconsider our political institutions and ethics in light of this fundamental fact.
[1] Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New York: Free Press, 1922 [1997]).
[2] Walter Lippmann, The Phantom Public (Wilder Publications, 1925 [2021]).
[3] Lippmann, Public Opinion, p. 55.
[4] See for instance Lippmann, Public Opinion, p. 56, p. 68.
[5] Ibid., p. 148.
[6] See in particular, Lippmann, The Fathom Public, pp. 71-2.
[7] Raymond Aron, Introduction à la philosophie de l’histoire : Essai sur les limites de l’objectivité historique (Paris : Gallimard, 1938 [1991)].
[8] Ibid., p. 349, my translation.
[9] Raymond Aron, L’opium des intellectuels (Paris : Fayard/Pluriel, 1955 [2010]).
[10] Lippmann, Public Opinion, p. 70.
[11] Aron, L’opium des intellectuels, p. 334, my translation.
[12] Lippmann, Public Opinion, p. 72.
[13] In particular, as well-documented by Iain Stewart, Aron’s views on politics and the political are largely influenced by those of Carl Schmitt, though Aron obviously didn’t infer the same conclusions as Schmitt’s about the absolute authority of the state. See Iain Stewart, Raymond Aron and Liberal Thought in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
[14] On Aron’s rejection of popular sovereignty as a constitutive feature of democratic regimes, see his 1938 essay “Etats démocratiques et états totalitaires.”