Democracy in the Digital Age: Revisiting the Dewey-Lippmann Debate

Please join the Philosophy Department on Wednesday, October 18, for the second talk in our Science in Democracy series with Sean Illing: Democracy in the Digital Age: Revisiting the Dewey-Lippmann Debate.

Can democracy ever work the way it’s supposed to in the digital era? Is there a democratic solution to the loss of faith in authority and public institutions? The problems we’re confronting today – illiberalism, misinformation, declining trust in government and each other – are not new. A free society has always posed enormous challenges for democratic systems. But digital technologies have upended our communication environment in unique ways and we’re struggling to adapt to the pace of change. As it happens, a classic 20th century debate between Walter Lippmann and John Dewey about the meaning and limits of democracy remains essential to anyone trying to make sense of our current predicament. If we want to preserve American democracy in the digital age, revisiting the tensions they wrestled with nearly a century ago is a good place to start.

Sean Illing is a journalist, philosopher, host of Vox’s podcast The Gray Area, and co-author of The Paradox of Democracy: Free Speech, Open Media and Perilous Persuasion.

This speaker series was kindly funded by UPenn's SNF Paideia Program.