The Concept of Provisionality in Human Life
Provisionality in Decision Making
Every action we take as human beings is provisional. The power of time to erode everything means that everything is subject to revision. The term 'decision' in our language, derived from the Latin for 'cut', signifies that when we make a decision, we are making a deliberate 'cut' in the sequence of events or reasoning leading up to that decision. This serves as a stark reminder that humans do not possess a device that provides them with absolute certainty on the course of action to take. Consequently, every decision is an admission that we must act with incomplete, provisional knowledge, and that additional information or understanding could lead to a different decision.
Philosophical Perspectives on Provisionality
Philosophers have acknowledged this concept for centuries, even if their philosophies sometimes suggest otherwise. Nietzsche, a philosopher of provisionality himself, did an injustice to Socrates by using his name to represent the excessive rationalism of Western culture. Instead, he should have used 'Platonism', assuming he was referring to the interpretation of Plato's work, not the work itself, which is only available to us after centuries of translations.
Plato's texts reveal two 'faces' of the philosopher. One is the metaphysical, idealist Plato, and the other is the 'poetically reflective' Plato, who demonstrates an understanding of the inherent provisionality of even the strictest distinctions. It's challenging to determine which of these has inspired countless 'footnotes' among Western philosophers since his time. However, it's plausible to suggest that it's the latter.
Plato's Understanding of Provisionality
In his text, Phaedrus, Plato demonstrates his understanding that a "pharmakon" is both poison and remedy, and that language is a tool of persuasion as well as a battlefield for truth. He believes that poets and dithyrambic music have no place in the ideal republic, yet he uses the poet in him to represent the epistemic inferiority of the senses, as shown in the myth of the cave in the Republic. These paradoxes suggest Plato's awareness of the provisionality of his metaphysical shield against human uncertainty and finitude, embodied in the supratemporal, archetypal Forms.
The clearest evidence that Plato understood the provisional nature of human life is his portrayal of his teacher, Socrates, as the quintessential philosopher of provisionality. This is encapsulated in Socrates's 'docta ignorantia' (learned ignorance), which asserts that the only thing humans can know for certain is 'how little they know.' Despite these indications in Plato's work, the philosophical tradition has emphasized Plato's attempt, through his metaphysical doctrine of the archetypal Forms, to provide supra-sensible protection against the inevitable erosion of human knowledge by time.
The Illusion of Fail-Safe Research Methodology
These considerations challenge the notion of a fail-safe research methodology that guarantees the time-resistant validity of human knowledge. Instead, they suggest that despite our best efforts to secure precise, unassailable knowledge, it is always already infected with the eroding germ of time. This insight is echoed in Jacques Derrida's essay 'Structure, sign and play in the discourse of the human sciences,' where he distinguishes between the 'bricoleur' (tinkerer, handyman, Jack-of-all-trades) and the 'engineer.'
The 'bricoleur' uses any tool or material at hand to construct or 'fix' things, while the engineer insists on fail-safe instruments and materials to guarantee exactitude of measurement and time-resistant functioning of their products. These two types serve as metaphors for different ways of approaching the world. Some people think like the 'engineer,' others like the 'bricoleur.'
Provisionality in the Realm of Physics
The history of physics, as outlined in Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, demonstrates the provisional nature of human knowledge. Despite this, many rationalistic detractors cannot accept the idea of science being subject to temporal constraints like any other form of human knowledge.
A clear example of this provisionality is the admission by Fabiola Gianotti, the leader of one of the teams at CERN's Giant Hadron Collider, that the confirmation of the 'probable' existence of the 'Higgs boson' merely means that the work of understanding the physical universe is only beginning. This echoes Socrates's philosophy and comes from a natural scientist.
Embracing Provisionality
If humans could finally accept and embrace their own finitude and temporality, they would realize that all things human in the realm of culture, arts, science, and even philosophy are provisional. They are subject to revision, 'correction,' modification, or amplification. Many of the problems people face today stem from their futile, hubristic attempt to perfect knowledge through science and technology, ignoring Derrida's advice that we are also mere bricoleurs, or tinkerers.
Bottom Line
The past five years have shown the futility of believing that one can overcome the inevitable limitations on human endeavors. The international cabal of neo-fascists at the World Economic Forum had assumed that they could 'condition' people into accepting the proto-totalitarian regime they tried to impose through Covid lockdowns, social distancing, masking, and eventually by mandating the Covid vaccines. However, this turned out to be merely provisional.
This is not a reason for complacency, as most of the awake tribe know. Their implicit belief in their quasi-divine powers guarantees that they will try again. This article is loosely based on an essay titled 'Filosofie van Voorlopigheid,' published in the Afrikaans Journal for Philosophy and Cultural Criticism, Fragmente.
What are your thoughts on the concept of provisionality in human life? Do you agree with the philosophers' perspectives discussed in this article? Share this article with your friends and sign up for the Daily Briefing, delivered every day at 6 pm.
