Introduction: Arguments for and against Limits on Knowledge in a Democracy

The papers in this section are all devoted to arguments for and against limits on knowledge in a democracy. They are all taken up, in one way or another, with questions of privacy; of the transparency (or lack of it) of powerful institutions and consequential decision procedures; of the costs and demands of national security; and so on—questions that are very much at the heart of this volume and the conference on which it is based.