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The Single-minded Pursuit of Consistency and its Weakness

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Abstract

I argue that a compulsive seeking for just one sense of consistency is hazardous to rationality, and that observing the subtle distinctions of reasonableness between individual and groups may suggest wider, structuralistic notions of consistency, even relevant to re-assessing Gödel’s Second Incompleteness Theorem and to science as a whole.

Saberíamos muito mais das complexidades da vida se nos aplicássemos a estudar com afinco as suas contradições em vez de perdermos tanto tempo com as identidades e coerências, que estas têm obrigação de explicar-se por si mesmas. José Saramago, “A Caverna”

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Carnielli, W. The Single-minded Pursuit of Consistency and its Weakness. Stud Logica 97, 81–100 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11225-010-9298-7

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