The philosopher Bill Lycan (an old friend, once my colleague at Ohio State, a prolific writer, and an enormously entertaining person) came to my mind when a friend was amazed that I managed to write at least one essay a day — every day of the year — as a posting on this blog (this posting is the second for today, and it’s not yet 9 am; I’m on a roll). At least once at Ohio State, a student asked Bill how he managed to publish so much (perhaps, like Vishnu, he could write with four arms at once). Bill’s wonderful reply:
I have a very high tolerance for error.
This was, in fact, a deeply serious reply, worth some reflection.
But about Bill. From Wikipedia:
William G. Lycan (born September 26, 1945) is an American philosopher and professor emeritus at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was formerly the William Rand Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professor. Since 2011, Lycan is also distinguished visiting professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut, where he continues to research, teach, and advise graduate students.
… Lycan taught for twelve years at Ohio State University, before joining the faculty at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1982.
… [He is] the author of eight books and over 150 articles (and over 20 reviews)
A publication record that earned him those distinguished-professor appointments.
Errors. There are plenty of errors that Bill (like other responsible academics) takes some trouble to avoid: mechanical errors of all kinds in the text (though these turn out to be remarkably difficult to find and correct; some will get through); errors in the citations of the works of other and in quotations (I have learned, to my shame, that my memory for these things is only approximate); errors as to matters of fact (again, my memory is only approximate). Some small number of these errors will find their way into the final text, and you will live with these, hoping that there will be a second printing (there rarely is).
Tolerable mistakes. Here fall claims, hypotheses, speculations, proposals — advanced with varying degrees of confidence, but worth ventilating and pursuing, if only to discover where they go wrong, or to literally learn from your mistakes, but also to expose previously unexamined alternatives or dubious assumptions. So the physicist John Wheeler was led to claim (about theoretical physics) that knowledge only progresses by making mistakes as fast as possible.
Welcoming error of this sort permits creative thinking, moderated by the testing of ideas and avoiding the trap of perfectionist thinking, where every idea is attended by a host of difficulties and objections that lead to suppressing it.
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