An Idea
October 16, 2009
What if I wrote a story about a philosopher putting together/writing a paper or a book that he expected to have great consequence. Probably because this paper is some sort of dissertation on how people ought to live their lives. He expects that his argument is so convincing that it will dramatically change the world.
Through the telling of this story it would come out that he doesn’t actually think this argument holds up (logically, rationally, for some reason,) but it’s still extremely convincing. He wants to publish this because he thinks the effect of people believing the argument is true is a good one, even though the argument isn’t true.
There is a conflict here. Perhaps the only way this works is if no one realizes what he is doing. And then the question is: as a third party, do you let it play out, or do you inform the masses and probably stop said good P thing from occurring?
