I don't really appreciate you well-reasoned argument about the wisdom of uncertainty... now I am paralysed! So how do we make our next decisions-- I Ching?!
It’s true that the logical endpoint of excessive deference to uncertainty is what some critics call “paralysis by analysis.” But the point I was trying to make is rather that whatever approach to a problem is chosen, whether path is taken, especially with respect to complex problems with many moving parts and unknown factors, will have costs, that is, negative consequences. Those consequences, per se, do not justify the inevitable critics who will say: “See what you did? You shouldn’t have done that.” The northern route would have been better only in retrospect, not reality. 😳
Interesting article. Thank you. However, the whole way through I could not help but feel that your central thesis is not a paradox but instead involves a blatant Aristotelian logical contradiction that robs the thesis of basic meaning. Stated another way, the assertion "no one can ever really know anything" applies to that assertion itself, thus invalidating the entire assertion.
I grant that possessing a high degree of certainty based on questionable or insufficient evidence is a problem but that's just an epistemological question pertaining to the quality of the claimed knowledge, not that the knowledge is not knowledge at all.
"Paradoxes" such as you describe seem to be the result of faulty epistemology, often implicit. Many of these paradoxes imply that the possibility of error in analytical pursuits equals the inevitability of constant error. The fundamental epistemological error is to regard "knowledge with certainty" as requiring infallibility or omniscience as a standard of reference, when it does not.
It's a bit like saying a person is blind because he sees things through human eyes.
Thanks for weighing in. I’m tempted to cede the philosophical point off the bat. I cannot disagree with your argument. For one, I share the annoyance with “could be this, could be that” wishy-washy thinking, and feared that what I wrote might come across as that. But I was writing not as a philosopher of epistemology (no claim of any kind in that connection) but as a former diplomatic practitioner and political analyst irritated by the inevitable jeering of critics about “mistakes made” in this concrete policy action or that. (Take your pick. Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, the withdrawal from Afghanistan etc.) It became pretty clear to me early on that, in facing any complicated foreign policy, national security, or domestic political problem, it is always a matter of which mistakes you’d prefer to be associated with. To state a truism, there are inevitable risks and costs to any approach. My own critique of my essay goes more in the direction of it being an elaborate dressing up of the idea of opportunity cost. I do appreciate the engagement though; it’s what I miss most about being a diplomat.
I don't recall you having any interest in your horoscope Alexi. I don't believe you are interested in mystic hoha of any stripe. Shall we throw up our hands and have faith in god's divine plan? Ridiculous.
What is wrong with our good old frontal lobes, and what is right about sitting on our hands?
I don't really appreciate you well-reasoned argument about the wisdom of uncertainty... now I am paralysed! So how do we make our next decisions-- I Ching?!
It’s true that the logical endpoint of excessive deference to uncertainty is what some critics call “paralysis by analysis.” But the point I was trying to make is rather that whatever approach to a problem is chosen, whether path is taken, especially with respect to complex problems with many moving parts and unknown factors, will have costs, that is, negative consequences. Those consequences, per se, do not justify the inevitable critics who will say: “See what you did? You shouldn’t have done that.” The northern route would have been better only in retrospect, not reality. 😳
Interesting article. Thank you. However, the whole way through I could not help but feel that your central thesis is not a paradox but instead involves a blatant Aristotelian logical contradiction that robs the thesis of basic meaning. Stated another way, the assertion "no one can ever really know anything" applies to that assertion itself, thus invalidating the entire assertion.
I grant that possessing a high degree of certainty based on questionable or insufficient evidence is a problem but that's just an epistemological question pertaining to the quality of the claimed knowledge, not that the knowledge is not knowledge at all.
"Paradoxes" such as you describe seem to be the result of faulty epistemology, often implicit. Many of these paradoxes imply that the possibility of error in analytical pursuits equals the inevitability of constant error. The fundamental epistemological error is to regard "knowledge with certainty" as requiring infallibility or omniscience as a standard of reference, when it does not.
It's a bit like saying a person is blind because he sees things through human eyes.
My two cents. Thanks again for this piece.
Thanks for weighing in. I’m tempted to cede the philosophical point off the bat. I cannot disagree with your argument. For one, I share the annoyance with “could be this, could be that” wishy-washy thinking, and feared that what I wrote might come across as that. But I was writing not as a philosopher of epistemology (no claim of any kind in that connection) but as a former diplomatic practitioner and political analyst irritated by the inevitable jeering of critics about “mistakes made” in this concrete policy action or that. (Take your pick. Russia/Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, the withdrawal from Afghanistan etc.) It became pretty clear to me early on that, in facing any complicated foreign policy, national security, or domestic political problem, it is always a matter of which mistakes you’d prefer to be associated with. To state a truism, there are inevitable risks and costs to any approach. My own critique of my essay goes more in the direction of it being an elaborate dressing up of the idea of opportunity cost. I do appreciate the engagement though; it’s what I miss most about being a diplomat.
I don't recall you having any interest in your horoscope Alexi. I don't believe you are interested in mystic hoha of any stripe. Shall we throw up our hands and have faith in god's divine plan? Ridiculous.
What is wrong with our good old frontal lobes, and what is right about sitting on our hands?
Good question 🙋