Introduction
Blog posts 131 through 139 approached leeway primarily from a hermeneutic perspective. Leeway was introduced as the condition for encountering an ontology one does not share without immediately experiencing it as a threat. Curiosity appeared capable of activating this condition. Sustained engagement sometimes seemed to create a relational space resembling the Japanese concept of ma. Subsequent posts explored how unfinished ontologies, lived reality, rapport, and institutional reality contact might help explain why such moments remain possible.
In this blog post, leeway is approached from the perspective of cognitive and social theory.
Not gullible
One perspective comes from cognitive science. Human beings know far less than they often imagine. As Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach have argued (The knowledge illusion, 2017), much of what individuals regard as their own knowledge is in fact distributed across other people, institutions, technologies, and social practices. Individuals routinely rely on knowledge they do not themselves possess. Communication is therefore not optional. It is one of the conditions that make human cognition possible.
Precisely because people depend so heavily on information provided by others, communication creates vulnerabilities. Information can be incomplete, mistaken, misleading, manipulative, or deceptive.
A recurring assumption in public debate is that people are epistemically gullible and therefore vulnerable to persuasion. As discussed in blog posts 17, 19, 25 and 128, this assumption often carries paternalistic implications.
Hugo Mercier (Not born yesterday, 2020) argues the opposite. Human beings appear remarkably vigilant. They routinely evaluate the plausibility of claims, the trustworthiness of sources, the competence of speakers, and the consistency of messages with existing knowledge. By default, people tend to reject information that conflicts with their existing understanding of the world. This vigilance is not a flaw. It is one of the reasons communication remains viable. Without vigilance, social learning would quickly resemble manipulation.
Yet the concept of vigilance raises a question: If people are naturally vigilant, how does reality remain capable of challenging existing interpretations?
Correction
A potential answer emerges from Andy Clark’s work (The experience machine, 2023). He claims that human beings do not merely interpret reality. They continuously anticipate it. Successful action depends upon maintaining sufficient contact with reality for expectations to be corrected when they no longer work. Discrepancies generate pressure for adjustment. In this sense, cognition can be understood as a continuous process of reducing discrepancies between expectations and experience.
But, if this were the whole story, change would appear straightforward: When reality contradicts an expectation, the expectation should change. Yet everyday experience suggests otherwise. People frequently encounter discrepancies without revising their interpretations. They reinterpret evidence, dismiss sources, rationalize inconsistencies, or simply ignore information.
The question of this blog post therefore becomes more precise: How can correction occur within a system that is also designed to be vigilant?
Reasoning and social life
Mercier offers a useful clue. Reasoning is often discussed as an individual activity. But, like knowledge, much reasoning appears to have evolved in social contexts. Human beings produce, exchange, evaluate, and challenge reasons.
Reasoning can contribute to correction. But reasoning can also contribute to resistance. People are often highly critical of arguments presented by others while remaining comparatively uncritical of arguments that support their existing positions. At the same time, exposure to discussion, criticism, and competing arguments often improves reasoning. Reasoning therefore appears neither inherently corrective nor inherently defensive. It can become either. The outcome depends partly on the conditions under which reasoning occurs.
At this point the insights of Jay Van Bavel and Dominic Packer (The power of us, 2021) arare noteworthy. They argue that people rarely evaluate information independently of their social identities. Beliefs are often embedded within networks of belonging, trust, status, and group membership. Disagreement therefore carries costs. Revising an interpretation is not merely an epistemic act; it may also affect one’s relationship to a group.
Robert Kurzban’s work points in a similar direction. Human reasoning does not occur in a social vacuum. Individuals navigate reputational concerns, alliances, and social expectations alongside questions of truth and accuracy.
Correction, in other words, is rarely just about evidence, knowledge, or reasoning. Revising an interpretation may change not only what one believes but also how one relates to others and how others relate in return.
Continuity
Now yet another distinction seems to become relevant. Many theories assume that people defend beliefs, ideologies, identities, or worldviews as such. Nick Chater’s work (The mind is flat, 2018) ssuggests a different possibility. What appears as a stable worldview may be less stable than it seems. Human beings continuously construct interpretations that remain sufficiently coherent with previous interpretations; beneath this apparent consistency lies an ongoing process of improvisation.
TThought processes, according to Chater, proceed in individual cycles. Each builds upon previous cycles without simply repeating them, adding a new reinterpretation. Continuity therefore emerges not from a fixed ontology but from the ongoing reconstruction of earlier thought cycles. Each reconstruction also contains the possibility of deviation. Continuity is preserved not through repetition but through creative variation on an existing theme.
Clark’s notion of precision may be particularly relevant here. Not every discrepancy receives equal weight. Expectations associated with identity, belonging, competence, or continuity may acquire greater precision than more peripheral assumptions. As a result, contradictory information may not simply challenge a belief. It may challenge an expectation that has become deeply invested with significance.
This helps explain why challenges to existing interpretations may generate resistance. The challenge is not merely intellectual. It threatens coherence and expectations that have acquired high precision over time. The issue is not simply whether a proposition is true or false. The issue is whether coherence can absorb it.
Liquid modernity
This observation becomes even more relevant under conditions described by Zygmunt Bauman (Identity, 2004; Liquid life, 2005; Liquid times, 2007). Bauman argues that identities have become fragmented and ontologies insufficiently solidified. Continuity and coherence therefore become increasingly valuable as stable forms of orientation become scarcer, yet increasingly difficult to maintain as individuals encounter a growing variety of realities, relationships, and perspectives. Contemporary ontologies thus appear simultaneously more defensive and more unfinished, as described in blog post 133.
Leeway
This brings us back to leeway. Previous posts described leeway as a condition for remaining present in the face of ontological difference. From a cognitive-social perspective, it may be understood as a condition in which epistemic vigilance remains sufficiently open to correction by reality.
Leeway therefore would not require abandoning vigilance or suspending judgement. It remains compatible with doubt, criticism, disagreement, and caution. Instead, discrepant information remains available for consideration: reality is not immediately rejected, and continuity and coherence are not immediately defended.
Earlier observations now might be interpreted differently. Curiosity would prolong engagement with discrepancy; rapport would reduce the social risks of revision; and reality contact would increase the likelihood that discrepant information will be taken seriously. Each would help create conditions in which vigilance remains open rather than defensive.
Ma revisited
The concept of ma can also be reconsidered from this perspective. Rather than a space in which differences disappear, ma may be a space in which closure is temporarily deferred. Neither participant abandons their continuity system or absorbs the other. Both remain sufficiently open for reality to continue participating in the encounter. The result is not agreement, but the possibility that reality becomes larger than either participant’s continuity system anticipated.
A tentative mechanism
The question posed at the beginning of this blog post was whether leeway could be described beyond hermeneutics. A speculative answer seems possible.
Previous posts suggested that reality can exceed existing ontologies. Cognitive and social theory may help explain why this is difficult to accommodate. Humans depend on socially distributed knowledge and therefore on communication, yet their epistemic vigilance protects them from unreliable information. Successful action simultaneously requires continuous correction by reality. Social identities, reputational concerns, and commitments to continuity can make such correction more difficult.
Leeway may emerge at precisely this intersection. Lived reality, curiosity, and rapport can help keep vigilance open to discrepancy. When openness becomes reciprocal, interaction may generate forms of social self-correction that no participant could achieve alone. Such correction does not oppose continuity; it enables continuity to adapt to realities that exceed its current interpretations.