The counterintuitive concept of ‘subjectless communication’ is central to
Habermas’ attempt to preserve an account of ideal democratic deliberation
without recourse to a unitary popular will. Our aim in this essay is both to
explicate and to develop further this concept of deliberation as a way of
preserving the core ideas of radical democracy. First, we situate the problem by
elaborating the theory of discourse that provides Habermas with a more complex
account of deliberation than found in civic republicanism (section I). One can then
understand the concept of ‘subjectless communication’ as introducing further
dimensions of social complexity within the process of democratic deliberation and
decision-making (section II). We then argue that Habermas’ strongly epistemic
interpretation of this model engenders difficulties in dealing with contemporary
value pluralism (section III). These difficulties motivate a weaker epistemic
conception of deliberative democracy that allows more room for ongoing
disagreement and compromise (section IV). Revising the democratic epistemic
ideals themselves makes them more plausible than Habermas’ own strategy of
accommodating strong ideals of consensus to the ‘unavoidable complexity’ of
modern society. In conclusion, we formulate a weaker version of the democratic
principle and suggest its benefits for the empirical analysis of current institutions
(section V). We argue that such a weaker version of the democratic ideal of
agreement remains consistently cognitivist and at the same time provides a better
tool for criticizing the failures of actual democratic arrangements to promote
public deliberation
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