Читать книгу The Contributory Revolution - Pierre Giorgini - Страница 18

I will probably never know why, although originally an engineer and mathematician, I have never been able to come to terms with linear, deductive thinking. I feel as if I am locked in there, as if the need to have the destination point, in order to draw the shortest line of reasoning, bothered me. For me, it is a condition that is too restrictive, not speculative enough. Still, throughout my four previous essays, I tried to define my objective first and then develop my reasoning as a flawless argument. However, each time I developed it, the network of argument nodes led me to new speculative links, impossible to control. The matter of knowledge is incredibly alive; it is complex, and submits us, like the living world, to unpredictable disruptions, to sensitivities to the initial conditions of reasoning which, when we simply seek to be serious, shatter many claims that we believe to be true. The beliefs are there, lurking in the corners of all science, of any supposedly certain evolutionary equation. They prevent us from seeing, or compel us to see only what we believe, despite the most rigorous formal reasoning. Faults appear, and they lead me into changes of direction which constantly transform the final objective, which should end with “Therefore…”, or “Consequently I can state that…”. I only know how to proceed in a circular fashion, but at each pass, my thinking becomes more refined, with more moderation, more nuance, more “maybe”. It distorts the trajectory of the writing, at the same time as the contours of the conclusion.

So, this book will not escape what is now a style that many reproach me for and consider a limitation. But there it is. Though an engineer, I could never read a plan, and follow it step by step. It is the same thing when I assemble a piece of IKEA furniture. In fact, I have always been more attracted by the method of certain painters of my acquaintance, who work in layers, without really having a model, without a precise sketch of what they want to achieve. They paint a background, then another layer of background, reworking the first background if necessary, add another layer and so on, and finally the finishing touches. The canvas does not appear in its overall meaning until the last detail is finished, small and discreet as it may be. It is like a sentence that only makes sense at its final point.

There may be a feeling of repetition, but each time the argument will be refined. At each layer, each of the shapes will be defined by the definition they lend to others. It is, in some way, a circular system of writing.

1 1 Cochet, Y. (2018). Tribune de Yves Cochet – Socialter 2020, special issue, December. Yves Cochet is the former Minister of the Environment of France.

2 2 The words of the French industrialist, Pierre-Georges Latécoère, written on a commemorative plaque at 79 Bis, Avenue Marceau, Paris.