»Hört auf die Wissenschaft!« Wiedergeburt der epistemischen Demokratie?

In the modern state, the relation between truth and science is and always has been fragile and ambivalent. The modern period and the enlightenment were a triumphal march of the rationality of science through the public institutions. While natural sciences, theology, and humanities followed different paths of a more and more differentiated scientific universe, rationality put public debate (and thus democracy) under the pressure of scientism. This essay discusses the deep interconnection of the scientific progress, epistemology, political decision-making in a democracy, and public reason and the tensions inherent in the modern concept of rationality, the rhetoric battles over identity, reason, and the auto-politicisation of science itself, enchanted by the prospects of holism and power.