Our rational lives
are precarious because our intellectual landscapes are littered with
inconsistencies. This can lead to
despair; as Leonard Cohen puts it: “everybody knows that the boat is leaking,
everybody knows that the captain lied”[1]. This is the refrain of the 99% and various similar
protest movements. Logic weighs in with
the result that anything can be derived from a contradiction. To the extent that we are all conflicted,
there is no telling what we are each capable of. But what does universal consistency look
like? Would it be a healthier state of affairs? Whatever it looks like, a single
model of reality runs the risk of being universally wrong. This pushed Paul Feyerabend to advocate for science to be dethroned and treated like any other other field of inquiry. I think that goes too far (after all, science has experienced the kind of successes that deserve special attention). Still, I agree that our
survival depends on the maximal diversity of our conceptual schemes and models ... If only to spread the risk of being wrong and increase the chances of discovering useful schemes. This is why our conflicting commitments are both a source of problems and the basis of our salvation.
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