By the mid-nineteenth-century, 'public opinion' emerged as a new form of authority in Upper Canada. Contemporaries came to believe that the best answer to common questions arose from deliberation among private individuals. Older conceptions of government, sociability and the relationship between knowledge and power were jettisoned for a new image of Upper Canada as a deliberative democracy.
The Capacity to Judge asks what made widespread public debate about common issues possible; why it came to be seen as desirable, even essential; and how it was integrated into Upper...
By the mid-nineteenth-century, 'public opinion' emerged as a new form of authority in Upper Canada. Contemporaries came to believe that the best an...
