Volume 44, Issue 2, 2006
David L. Hildebrand
Pages 217-236
Does Every Theory Deserve a Hearing?
Evolution, Intelligent Design, and the Limits of Democratic Inquiry
Ongoing hostilities between evolution and intelligent design adherents reveal deeper epistemological and ethical crises in American life. First, when adjudicating sociopolitical differences among people, how much epistemological “diversity” can be embraced before the very canons of judgment become suspect? Pragmatist notions of inquiry, warranted assertability, and pluralism can help strike a better balance. Second, the related crisis of factionalized “communities” might be addressed, along Deweyan lines, by the construction of a philosophical “total attitude” redolent of democratic ideals, more broadly conceived. This attitude could grow out of reconstructed educational methods that train imaginative and interactive habits of inquiry and communication.