Do We Need a “European Political Epistemology”?

Zusammenfassung

Understood as a contrast to dominant “U.S.-American political epistemology”, this chapter explores two possible meanings of “European political epistemology”. “European political epistemology” differs either because it sets out from different examples, particularly avoiding the current master exemplar for untruth in politics, i.e. the political system of the United States; or it differs due to its style of doing political epistemology, i.e. because of the philosophical methods and traditions it draws on. Both ways of understanding “European political epistemology” offer avenues for interesting philosophical explorations. Yet, as we hope to show, the term comes with critical challenges that scholars should be aware of when engaging in respective research. These are challenges related to the notion of “European” and the danger of perpetuating (Western) eurocentrism.