Reviving Randomness for Political Rationality: Elements of a Theory of Aleatory Democracy

For a long time, political theory frowned upon the notion of chance; political theorists and philosophers apparently have a difficult time taming their impulse to rein in the factor of chance. For them, calling something “a chance event” amounts tq evidence of intellectual inadequacy and even condemnation. In Kant’s philosophy, the term “by chance” means “only empirical,” implying that something is completely arbitrary and not thought through. 1 And according to Hegel, not only Homer’s sublime song but also the science of philosophy and the great works of bayonets and cannons owe nothing to chance and everything to the great “Compositeur Geist ”: 2 “An Iliad is not just thrown together by casting dice,” reads an aphorism from Hegel’s “Wastebook.” 3