The Principle of Publicity

Ø Kant: “What is Enlightenment?” (1785)

s Public use of reason

s Reason as a weapon against arbitrary power

Ø Feudal order

s Sovereign: monarch

s Basis of rule: will of monarch (“rule of men”)

s Publicity:

- Ceremonial display of power

- Power is not open to dispute

Ø Bourgeois order

s Sovereign: the people (bourgeois citizens)

s Basis of rule: reason (“rule of law”)

s Enlightenment ideal of publicity:

- Discourse rather than ceremony should be the basis of publicity

- Power must be democratically legitimated

Ø Tocqueville, Mill & public expression

s Key themes:

- Truth is the end, liberty is the means

» What is at stake?

» Truth may out

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Case Study

The Inquisition vs. the Enlightenment

Copernicus, De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres, 1543)

Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Prohibited Books, 1559)

Giordano Bruno (1548 – 1600) – a “Copernican”; burned at the stake in Rome

Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) – a “Copernican”; convicted in 1633 for his argument, as published in his Discorsi (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican, 1630)

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- Seek conflicting information and arguments:

» Play the devil's advocate

» Tolerate & respect minority views

- Limits of liberty: harm to others

- Mill's greatest concern (from Tocqueville): "tyranny of the majority"

s In Mill's view…

Usefulness, relevance, and civility are not alone reasonable bases for censorship.

Ø Re-cap on “the principle of publicity”

s Kant on “public reason”

“By the public use of one’s own reason I mean that use which anyone may make of it as a man of learning addressing the reading public.”

The “public” Kant was addressing had the following qualities:

- Predominantly male

- Members of the bourgeoisie (property owners)

- Literate (“reading public”)

Kant’s ideal “public” would:

- Be actively engaged

- Have courage to challenge dogma

- Be tolerant of opposing views

s Key shifts in ideals from feudalism to bourgeois liberalism:

Fedualism Bourgeois Society

- will (voluntas) - reason (ratio)*

- “rule of men” - “rule of law”

- hidden and unaccountable power - power is derived through democratic legitimacy

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* Belief that the “force of the better argument” (not simply raw power) should win.

s Galileo: The embodiment of the Enlightenment ideal

- Challenged dogmatic beliefs

- Believed in the necessity of public reason

Scientific discourse as model of public reason:

» Look for evidence to prove you’re wrong (doubt; devil’s advocate)

» Explain what you’ve learned to others

- Sought to reach a broad reading public with his ideas – published in Italian, not Latin

Ø Thomas Emerson -- Four premises of free expression in U.S. judicial theory