This article questions some of the assumptions about politics and democracy made in Ivan Cerovac's book (Epistemic Democracy and Political Legitimacy, 2020, Palgrave Macmillan). We claim that rational proceduralism and democratic deliberation rest on an idea of democratic citizens that is far too idealistic and in tension with the concept of truth advanced in the book. Following arguments developed by Merleau-Ponty, Rancière, and Lefort, we also question Cerovac's understanding of politics and point to a neglected but essential role that perceptions play in politics. The second part of the article stresses the importance of power and conflict in politics following Schmitt and Neu-mann. Schmitt and Neumann's contributions portray power, conflict, irrationality, and apathy as phe-nomena inherent to democracy. We conclude that this valuable book on epistemic democracy avoids too many of politics' complexities and is thus best placed to contribute to a certain taming of democ-racy.
