Author Archives: Peter

About Peter

Associate Dean for Research and the Lincoln Filene Professor of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Tufts University's Tisch College of Civic Life. Concerned about civic education, civic engagement, and democratic reform in the United States and elsewhere.

whether to make the election a referendum on MAGA

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In an interesting conversation between Ryan Grimm and Dimitri Melhorn (who represent two very different strands in today’s Democratic Party), Melhorn says:

So, imagine you’re the average voter, and you’re saying, OK, there are three things you can choose to believe about politics, and adjust your behavior accordingly. One, politics can do nothing for you. Two, politics can make your life better. Three, politics can make your life worse. People will believe the third. They normally default to the first, but they will believe the third. Within a rounding error, for electorally viable purposes, nobody believed the second, other than Bernie [Sanders] and his staffers and, you know, some other folks. It doesn’t work that way. I wish it did. It doesn’t.

I won’t dispute that Dmitri is right about the USA right now, and perhaps his theory would apply in Britain and much of the EU. It’s hard to persuade undecided voters that new or different leaders or policies will improve their lives. They are ready to believe that some current proposals would hurt them, and this fear can persuade them that voting matters. In turn, many of the current proposals that frighten the most Americans come from the hard right. Thus, Melhorn argues, the path to a Democratic victory is to make the election a referendum on right-wing ideas while downplaying ambitious progressive ones.

Although Dmitri may be correct about the present, this can’t be a law of nature. Surely FDR persuaded Americans that “politics can make your life better.” Maybe Roosevelt didn’t need a positive case to win against Herbert Hoover in 1932, but he and his party did argue for a New Deal, and the result was a whole new social contract, not only some electoral victories. Likewise for Clement Atlee in Britain (1945-51) and many other cases. Skepticism about the positive potential of elections and policy is a particular feature of our time.

Nor is skepticism universal now. In the 2020 American National Election Study, when presented with a forced choice, 42% of adults said “the less government, the better,” but 58% said there are “more things government should be doing.”

I would acknowledge that general pro-government sentiment doesn’t always translate into support for actual candidates who propose to do specific things. For one thing, almost a quarter of those who voted for Trump wanted government to do more, and they may not have the same kinds of interventions in mind that I do. Worse for progressives, the level of openness to more government was weakest where government might do the most good. In 2020, people without any college experience were split 50%/50% on the value of more government, whereas those with bachelor’s degrees favored more government by a 36-point margin (68%-32%). Black people were nine points less likely to support increasing government than white people (60% vs. 68%).

This class inversion has profoundly bad implications for our politics (and not just for progressives), but it is not historically typical. It’s a trap we must get out of.

During the Biden Administration, Democrats are actually making dramatic policy changes that might–if they succeed–make people’s lives better. When the Inflation Reduction Act passed last August, it was predicted to provide $270 billion in tax credits for green energy and manufacturing. Now the CBO is projecting the law’s cost at $553 billion. Goldman Sachs predicts that the “law will cost roughly $1.2 trillion — three times more than the official government forecast — and spur trillions more in private-sector investments.”

These estimates are being circulated as evidence of a budgetary problem, but for me, they are hugely hopeful (if true). Several trillion dollars in green investments could save the planet and improve people’s lives. Arguably, Congress recently enacted those policies.

It would therefore be ironic if Democrats’ best path to reelection was to make voters fear Republican ideas while offering largely symbolic proposals of their own, such as background checks for guns. That is like smuggling a new social contract past the voters.

Again, I would not be surprised if “Stop Republican craziness” polls better than “We are the midst of transforming the economy.” But that is a symptom of deeper troubles. The situation was different during the Clinton Administration, when Democrats actually did little except to block some GOP proposals. But during the Biden years, when the party is beginning to transform the economy, not to be able to run on that record is very odd.

See also: class inversion as an alternative to the polarization thesis; social class inversion in the 2022 US elections; using federal spending to strengthen democracy

does doubting the existence of the self tame the will?

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I like the following argument, versions of which can be found in many traditions from different parts of the world:

  1. A cause of many kinds of suffering is the will (when it is somehow excessive or misplaced).
  2. Gaining something that you desire does not reduce your suffering; you simply will something else.
  3. However, one’s will can be tamed.
  4. Generally, the best way to manage the will is to focus one’s mind on other people instead of oneself. Thus,
  5. Being ethical reduces one’s suffering.

In some traditions, notably in major strands of Buddhism and in Pyrrhonism, two additional points are made:

  1. The self does not actually exist. Therefore,
  2. It is irrational to will things for oneself.

Point #7 is supposed to provide both a logical and a psychological basis for #4. By realizing that I do not really exist, I reduce my attachment to my (illusory) self and make more space to care about others, which, in turn, makes me happier.

Point #6 is perfectly respectable. Plenty of philosophers (and others) who have considered the problem of personal identity have concluded that an ambitious form of the self does not really exist. (For instance, David Hume.)

But if the self doesn’t exist, does it really follow that we should pay more attention to other people? We might just as well reason as follows:

  1. The self does not really exist. Therefore,
  2. a. Other people do not really exist as selves. Therefore,
  3. a. It is irrational to be concerned about them.

Or

  1. The self does not really exist. Therefore,
  2. b. It is impossible for me to change my character in any lasting way. Therefore,
  3. b. There is no point in trying to make myself more ethical.

Striving to be a better or happier person is not a sound reason for doubting the existence of the self. This doubt may do more harm than good. If there actually is no self, that is a good reason not to believe in one. But then we are obliged to incorporate skepticism about personal identity into a healthy overall view. The best way might be some version of this:

  1. The self does not really exist. Nevertheless,
  2. c. I would be wise to treat other people as if they were infinitely precious, durable, unique, and persistent things (selves).

I think it is worth getting metaphysics right, to the best of our ability. For example, it is worth trying to reason about what kind of a thing (if anything) a self is. However, I don’t believe that metaphysical beliefs entail ways of life in a straightforward way, with monotonic logic.

Any given metaphysical view is usually compatible with many different ways of being. It may even strongly encourage several different forms of life, depending on how a person absorbs the view. Thus I am not surprised that some people (notably, thoughtful Buddhists) have gained compassion and equanimity by adopting the doctrine of no-self, even though the same doctrine could encourage selfishness in others, and some people may become more compassionate by believing in the existence of durable selves. In fact, many have believed in the following argument:

  1. Each person (or sentient being) has a unique, durable, essential being
  2. I am but one out of billions of these beings. Therefore,
  1. It is irrational to will things for myself.

The relationship between an abstract idea and a way of being is mediated by “culture,” meaning all our other relevant beliefs, previous examples, stories, and role-models. We cannot assess the moral implications of an idea without understanding the culture in which it is used. For instance, the doctrine of no-self will have different consequences in a Tibetan monastery versus a Silicon Valley office park.

We cannot simply adopt or join a new culture. That would require shedding all our other experiences and beliefs, which is impossible. Therefore, we are often in the position of having to evaluate a specific idea as if it were a universal or culturally neutral proposition that we could adopt all by itself. For instance, that is what we do when we read Hume and Kant (or Nagarjuna) on the question of personal identity and try to decide what to think about it. This seems a respectable activity; I only doubt that, on its own, it will make us either better or worse people.

See also: notes on religion and cultural appropriation: the case of US Buddhism; Buddhism as philosophy; how to think about the self (Buddhist and Kantian perspectives); individuals in cultures: the concept of an idiodictuon. And see “The Philosophic Buddha” by Kieran Setiya, which prompted these thoughts.

The Entrance to the Great Pyramid, from George Sandys

a seventeenth-century Englishman inside the Great Pyramid

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This is an excerpt from George Sandy’s The Relation of a Journey begun [in] 1610, shared for no reason except that I found the narrative reminiscent of Tolkien or Dungeons & Dragons. (And I can find no reliable digital text online.) I have modernized the spelling and added paragraph-breaks and a few commas. Otherwise, it is verbatim.

The top, at length, we ascended with many pauses and much difficulty, from whence, with delighted eyes, we beheld that Sovereign of Streams [the Nile], and most excellent of Countries [Egypt]. Southward and near [at] hand the Mumm[i]es: afar, of divers huge Pyramides, each of which, were this away, might supply the repute of a wonder. During of a great part of the day, it catcheth no shadow of the earth, but is at once illuminated on all sides.

Descending again, on the East side below, from each corner equally distant, we approached the entrance, seeming heretofore to have been closed up, or so intended, both by the place itself, as appeareth by the following Picture and conveyances within.

“The Entrance to the Great Pyramid”
Into this our Janissaries discharged their arquebuses, lest some should have skulked within to do us mischief, and guarded the mouth whilst we entered, for fear of the wild Arabs.  To take the better footing, we put off our shoes, and most of our apparel, foretold of the heat within not inferior to a Stove. Our guide (a Moor) went foremost: every one of us with our lights in our hands. 

A most dreadful passage, and no less cumbersome; not above a yard in breadth, and four feet in height, each stone containing that measure. So that always stooping, and sometimes creeping, by reason of the rubbish, we descended (not by stairs, but as down the steep of a hill) a hundred feet, where the place for a little circuit enlarged, and the fearful descent continued, which they say none ever durst attempt any farther. Save that a Bassa [a bashaw or person of rank?] of Cairo, curious to search into the secrets thereof, caused divers condemned persons to undertake the performance, well stored with lights, and other provision: and that some of them ascended again well-nigh thirty miles off in the Deserts.  

A Fable deviled only to beget wonder. But others have written, that at the bottom there is a spacious Pit, eighty and fix Cubits deep, filled at the over-flow by concealed Conduits; in the middle little Island, and on that a Tomb containing the body of Cheops, a King of Eypt, and the builder of this Pyramid: which with the truth hath a greater affinity. For since I have been told by one out of his own experience, that in the uppermost depth there is a large square place, (though without water) into which he was led by another entry opening to the South, known but unto few (that now open, being shut by some order) and entered at this place where we feared to descend. 

A turning on the right hand leadeth into a little room: which by reason of the noisome savor and uneasy passage, we refused to enter. Clambering over the mouth of the aforesaid dungeon, we ascended as upon the bow of an arch, the way no larger than the former, about an hundred and twenty feet. Here we passed through a long entry, which led directly forward [illegible] follow, that it took even from us that uneasy benefit of sloping. Which brought us into a little Room with a compact Roof, more long than broad, of polished Marble in whose Grave-like smell, half full of Rubbish, forced our quick return. Climbing also over this entrance, we ascended as before, about 'an hundred and twenty feet higher. 

This entry was of an exceeding height, yet no broader from side to side than a man may fathom [illegible], benched on each side, and closed above with admirable Architecture: the Marble so great, and so cunningly joined, as it had been hewn through the living Rock. At the top we entered into a goodly Chamber, twenty foot wide, and forty in length; the Roof of a marvelous height, and the Stones so great, that eighty floors it, eight roofs it, eight flag the ends, and sixteen the sides, all of well-wrought [?] Marble. 

Athwart the Room at the upper end there standeth a Tomb, uncovered, empty, and all of [?] high, seven feet in length, not four in breadth, and sounding like a Bell. In this no doubt; lay the body of the builder. They erecting such costly Monuments, not only out of a vain ostentation, but being of the opinion, that after the dissolution of the [body?] the soul should survive, and when thirty-six thousand years were expired, again be joined unto the self-same body restored unto his former condition, gathered in their conceits from Astronomical demonstrations.

Against one end of the Tomb, and close to the wall, there openeth a Pit with a long and narrow mouth, which leadeth into an under Chamber. In [the] walls on each side of the upper Room there are two holes, one opposite to another, their ends not discernible, nor big enough to be crept into; sooty within, and made as they say, by a flame of fire which darted through it. ...

the Constitution is crumbling

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Juan Linz observed that only one presidential republic–a system in which the president is separately elected from the legislature–has survived over a long period (Linz 1990). That exception was the USA, but a lucky contingency may have prevented the collapse of our constitution, and that factor is now weakening.

In a presidential system, the executive branch and at least one legislative chamber can be controlled by different parties. The public assesses the president on the basis of overall economic performance (and peace). Therefore, the opposition in the legislature will be tempted to threaten to wreck the economy to extract massive concessions. If negotiations fail, the ensuing crisis will defeat the administration, while legislators will be less exposed to electoral damage.

Meanwhile, the president has incentives to use executive power (direct control over the bureaucracy and security services) to accomplish her or his goals despite the legislature. Either or both behaviors can destroy the constitutional system.

The contingent feature of US politics until the mid-1990s was the presence of at least three effective parties (Northern Democrats, Southern Democrats, and one or more flavors of Republicans) in Congress. A president could almost always build a majority coalition from two of these components–for better or worse.

Our fifty states also use presidential systems (with their governors acting like presidents). However, state policy is more constrained; a state legislature cannot directly wreck the economy. Also, 39 states currently have one-party governments, which avoids constitutional brinkmanship, although it leaves the majority unchecked. In any case, there are examples of Linz’s thesis in some states, such as North Carolina right now.

At the federal level, there have been clear signs of unfolding Linzian disaster since Congress split into effectively two national parties in the mid-1990s:

  • Government shutdowns due to failures to pass appropriations. There had been brief shutdowns before 1995, but the ones since then (Nov. 1995, 1995-6, 2013, Jan 2018, and 2018-19) represent 95.4% of all the time that the federal government has ever been closed due to inter-branch conflict. So far, this tactic has backfired on the opposition because the inconvenience and economic cost of a shutdown build gradually over time. Congress almost starts less popular than the president and may face mounting public opposition while the federal government is closed. However, in today’s even more polarized environment, a shutdown might benefit members of the opposition while wrecking the economy.
  • Refusal to raise the debt limit. The damage of a default would be immediate and could be catastrophic and permanent, although no one really knows what would happen. Because a crisis could wreck the administration’s prospects immediately, there would be no gradual increase in public opposition that might constrain Congress. So far, the US has not actually defaulted, in part because Obama conceded a great deal to Republicans to get the debt limit raised in 2011. It is not clear that Biden could do the same, even if he wanted to, because the House and Senate may lack the votes for any compromise bill that raises the debt ceiling. Failure to raise it would be a perfect example of a Linzian crisis, in which either the opposition destroys an administration or the president manages to ignore the law. (I happen to believe that the 14th Amendment provides a justification for ignoring the debt ceiling, but the economic effects of doing so are unknown, and Biden’s success would strengthen the executive in a way that Linz predicted.)
  • Impeachment: Three of the four House impeachment votes in US history have happened since 1995. One can make an argument for most, if not all, of these votes. Nevertheless, the frequent use of impeachment is an unmistakable sign of Linzian crisis.
  • Ignoring impeachment. Richard Nixon resigned to avoid an impeachment vote. But Clinton was impeached and gained popularity. Trump was impeached twice and is running for another term. Neutralizing the disgrace of a House impeachment vote weakens the Constitution.
  • Preventing a president from appointing any justices. When Senate Republicans blocked consideration of Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland, we appear to have entered a new period in which a Democratic president can only appoint members of the Supreme Court while there is a Democratic majority in the US Senate. It is hard to see the Democrats allowing the next Republican president to appoint any justice while they hold a Senate majority. Then the rule will be: unified party control is a condition of appointing justices.
  • Executive unilateralism: All presidents, including George Washington, have enacted controversial policies by executive order. Some presidents before the 1990s were already notorious for unilateralism. Still, the 21st century offers plenty of examples. For instance, whatever you think of the policy merits or the legality of Biden’s student-loan-forgiveness decision, it is troubling that a president can envision only one path to address the chronically elevated cost of college: waiving existing loans under the authority of a law enacted shortly after 9/11 to deal with national emergencies. I don’t see this move as tyrannical–Biden’s lawyers found an authorizing statute, courts will decide whether he overreached, and the public can vote in 2024. But I do think that using emergency presidential powers to address a chronic issue is a symptom of a broken constitution.

Two alternative to my theory:

  1. It’s not the Constitution; it’s the Republicans. Because the GOP was always more hostile to government programs and has radicalized since 2000, that party has initiated the various steps that are undermining the system.

I can grant this point, although I am not absolutely sure it is correct. (Democratic presidents have acted unilaterally). However, assigning moral responsibility may be moot. We should predict factional behavior, in Madison’s sense (a “common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community”). A stable constitution must be able to handle factionalism, much as a stable website must be able to manage spammers and trolls. Even if the Republicans are the sole source of current strain, the weakness is real.

  1. No constitution can survive factional behavior. Political leaders must always exercise forbearance. In that case, the problem is not our constitutional design but the willingness of leaders (again, probably mostly Republicans) to abuse the rules. As Levitsky & Ziblatt (2019) write:

Think of democracy as a game that we want to keep playing indefinitely. To ensure future rounds of the game, players must refrain from either incapacitating the other team or antagonizing them to such a degree, that they refuse to play again tomorrow. If one’s rivals quit, there can be no future games. This means that although individuals play to win, they must do so with a degree of restraint. In a pickup basketball game, we play aggressively, but we know not to foul excessively—and to call a foul only when it is egregious. After all, you show up at the park to play a basketball game, not to fight. In politics, this often means eschewing dirty tricks or hardball tactics in the name of civility and fair play (pp. 113-114).

Refusing to raise the debt limit to pay for borrowing that you voted to authorize is a clear example of a hardball tactic, if not a dirty trick.

My whole career is staked on the importance of political culture. I believe citizens must develop values and skills for making decisions together and then choose representatives who can also govern responsibly. Thus I can agree that our current crisis arises from elites’ poor norms and habits and bad choices by voters. Still, as Levitsky & Ziblatt acknowledge,

Norms of forbearance are especially important in presidential democracies. As Juan Linz argued, divided government can easily bring deadlock, dysfunction, and constitutional crisis. Unrestrained presidents can pack the Supreme Court or circumvent Congress by ruling via decree. And an unrestrained Congress can block the president’s every move, threaten to throw the country into chaos by refusing to fund the government, or vote to remove the president on dubious grounds (p. 108).

In short, all constitutions have vulnerabilities, but they are not all equally fragile. The record of presidential republics is really quite poor, and I am pessimistic about ours. If we are very lucky, the current crisis might force the Biden Administration to ignore the debt ceiling, and doing so might not cause a deep recession. Then, negotiations about the regular budget might yield an acceptable agreement and might position Biden for reelection against Trump. But there are many ways this can go wrong.

Consistent with the text of the Constitution, our electoral system could be changed in several states or nationally. Proportional representation or ranked-choice voting should increase the number of parties represented in Congress (Simmons, Gutierrez & Transue 2022), thereby allowing presidents to build majority coalitions by negotiation and discouraging incumbents from practicing brinkmanship. It’s possible that electoral reform is the only alternative to writing a whole new constitution after we have experienced a sufficiently disastrous period under the current one.

Sources: Linz, Juan J. “The perils of presidentialism.” Journal of democracy 1.1 (1990): 51-69; Levitsky, Steven, and Daniel Ziblatt. How democracies die. Crown, 2019; Simmons, Alan James, Manuel Gutierrez, and John E. Transue. “Ranked-choice voting and the potential for improved electoral performance of third-party candidates in America.” American Politics Research 50.3 (2022): 366-378. See also: judicial activism when the legislative branch is broken; is our constitutional order doomed?; four perspectives on student debt forgiveness and are we seeing the fatal flaw of a presidential constitution?

how the structure of ideas affects a conversation

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According to the “interactionist” theory of Mercier & Sperber 2017 (which I discussed on Monday), human beings evolved to make smart decisions in groups, and that requires us to exchange reasons. We naturally want to express reasons for our intuitions and critically assess other people’s reasons for their beliefs. It matters how well we perform these two tasks.

One familiar kind of person frustrates discussion by constantly linking every belief that he endorses back to one foundational principle, whether it is a constitutional right to individual freedom, God’s will, or equality for all. The problem is not the core belief itself but the way his whole network of beliefs is structured; it prevents reasoning around his core idea if you don’t happen to share it. 

A different familiar figure is the person who offers many ideas but cannot provide a reason for most of them. If we think of a reason as a link between two ideas, then this person’s network has no links. Whereas the first network was too centralized, the second is too disconnected.

We don’t literally possess networks of beliefs; rather, a network graph is a way of representing our reasoning. I conjecture that the formal features of such a network can predict whether the person will deliberate well. To illustrate (but not to prove) that conjecture, I will discuss two Kansas State students who participated in an online discussion as part of the research that led to Levine, Eagan & Shaffer 2022.

Before discussing how socioeconomic factors affect health, all the students in this study wrote short passages describing their personal views. Adèle and Beth are pseudonyms for white undergraduate KSU women, aged 21 and 22, whose mothers had not attended college.

Adèle wrote:

In my opinion, race should not influence the human health and well-being because every person should have an opportunity to succeed no matter what race they are. Social class influences the health because a healthy lifestyle is more expensive, but also a healthy lifestyle means physical activity and that does not depend on the social class, it depends on individual motivation. A social factor would be the people that we surround ourselves with. If we interact with people that live a healthy lifestyle, we can get influenced and borrow some of their habits. But is also true that for the lower class is the hardest to live a healthy lifestyle because they cannot afford one.

I think we could informally diagram her view with the graph below. The nodes are her stated beliefs. The arrows are her causal claims, except where I’ve denoted them as normative implications. This graph does not explain why Adèle formed her intuitions (i.e., why these beliefs formed in her mind) but rather represents the explicit reasons that she offers to explain her beliefs to others.

Beth wrote:

My thoughts on the impact of race, class and social factors on determinants on human health and wellbeing are that no matter what your race or social class is, you should be treated equally because the color of a person’s skin should not affect the way you view them. Both a black and white person can put in the same amount of hard work and effort to be able to reap the benefits of a happy healthy life. However, with that being said, there are some people who do not work as hard and that puts them in a lower social class than others. possibly making their overall health and wellbeing less than someone who is up in a higher social class.

I think we could informally diagram Beth’s view like this:

I propose that Adèle will be a better conversation-partner than Beth, not because her beliefs are superior but because of the structures represented by these two graphs.

Adèle has generated several independent intuitions (moral and empirical) that push in somewhat different directions. They are all connected to the idea of health, because that is the assigned topic, but there is some wiggle room between her beliefs, and she has identified several causes of the same outcomes. Adèle and I could talk about several of her intuitions. I could ask her to offer reasons for each one, and we could turn to another issue if we found that we disagreed on that point.

Meanwhile, Beth only offers reasons for one conclusion: that people should not pay attention to racial differences. I would worry that we couldn’t engage once she had made that point. Her sentence that begins, “However, with that being said,” does not actually present a conflicting point but elaborates on her main argument.

When asked whether “Everyday people from different parties can have civil, respectful conversations about politics,” Adèle agreed, but Beth strongly disagreed. Adèle also rated the online discussion more highly than Beth did as a learning experience. This is suggestive evidence that Adèle was more deliberative (in this context) than Beth.

Beth did participate in the online discussion four times and explicitly referred to previous commenters with openings that look civil, such as: “Although I agree with everything you have said, I think. …” However, all four of her contributions were variations on her basic point that success is due to hard work.

In contrast, when Adèle saw a post in the online discussion that recounted a story about a white woman who had succeeded in life due to her own hard work, she responded deliberatively, trying to connect to the previous writer’s ideas. She began: “I saw you talked about how hard work and effort can help you achieve a better lifestyle and I agree with it.” She had expressed this belief in her personal statement prior to the discussion, and it is represented in the first graph above.

She added, “But we also need to have in mind the people that grow up in less fortunate families and have different aspirations that some people have.” Here she introduced another belief that she had already held. She supported it with reasons: “For some of us, going to college is a thing that we knew it’s going to happen in our lives and we never question if we might go or no. But for some people they do not have this opportunity to afford college. … I believe that some people even if they are willing to put hard work and effort, not all of them are guaranteed to succeed.” She then acknowledged a criticism and addressed it: “Of course, there are people who succeeded but I believe that there are a lot of them who did not. And for a person who is less fortunate is not too easy to live a healthy lifestyle.”

My claim is not that Adèle formed better beliefs by reasoning. She may have developed her beliefs intuitively, as we generally do. Nor is there evidence that she revised her beliefs in response to objections, any more than Beth did. My claim is that Adèle contributed better to the group’s discussion because the structure of her reasons permitted more interaction.

(Two limitations of this post: First, I chose the examples to illustrate my main point. That does not prove the general pattern. Second, my diagrams could be biased. For instance, Beth’s belief that “motivation determines health,” which I depicted above as one node in her network, could be unpacked to look like this:

Adding those four nodes to her map would make her whole graph look almost as complex as Adèle’s. I am still looking for less subjective approaches to mapping text. In a lot of my current work, I elicit network structures by asking people multiple-choice questions, rather than graphing their open-ended statements, because the quantitative data seems more reliable for making interpersonal comparisons.)

Sources: Mercier, Hugo and Dan Sperber, The Enigma of Reason, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2017; Levine, Peter & Eagan, Brendan & Shaffer, David. (2022). Deliberation as an Epistemic Network: A Method for Analyzing Discussion. 10.1007/978-3-030-93859-8_2. See also modeling a political discussion; individuals in cultures: the concept of an idiodictuon; and how intuitions relate to reasons: a social approach.