Deweyan democracy is inherently comprehensive in the Rawlsian sense and therefore
unable to countenance the fact of reasonable pluralism. This renders Deweyan democracy
nonviable on pragmatic grounds. Given the Deweyan pragmatists’ views about the proper
relation between philosophy and politics, unless there is a viable pragmatist alternative to
Deweyan democracy, pragmatism itself is jeopardized. I develop a pragmatist alternative
to Deweyan democracy rooted in a Peircean social epistemology. Peircean democracy can
give Deweyan pragmatists all they should want from a democratic theory while avoiding
the anti-pluralistic implications of Dewey’s own democratic theory. After presenting the
arguments against Deweyan democracy and for Peircean democracy, I address a criticism
of Peircean democracy recently posed by Matthew Festenstein.
