This basic idea has been known for some time, and I think people may find the precedents interesting. In Descartes’ “Discourse on the Method”, he notes that he will keep his current ethical views and behaviours fixed, while he takes on his project of carefully investigating what he can know for certain. In Kant’s “What is the Enlightenment?”, he points out that part of what makes the Enlightenment work as a social project, is that people are allowed to say or think what they want to, as long as they obey the King and fulfill their social role. So it seems that previous writers have considered the importance of purposely fixing one’s behaviour for a while, so as to allow one’s thinking to be more free. Still, I feel that at some point or another, one does have to resolve the tension between that which one knows and that which one acts upon.
This basic idea has been known for some time, and I think people may find the precedents interesting. In Descartes’ “Discourse on the Method”, he notes that he will keep his current ethical views and behaviours fixed, while he takes on his project of carefully investigating what he can know for certain. In Kant’s “What is the Enlightenment?”, he points out that part of what makes the Enlightenment work as a social project, is that people are allowed to say or think what they want to, as long as they obey the King and fulfill their social role. So it seems that previous writers have considered the importance of purposely fixing one’s behaviour for a while, so as to allow one’s thinking to be more free. Still, I feel that at some point or another, one does have to resolve the tension between that which one knows and that which one acts upon.