Episode 3.07: More on the dangers of reducing incoherence rather than living with its contradictions

We name things but the totalities we name are not usually coherent, so we necessarily simplify and generalise. But when we go back the other way we should avoid thinking we are describing those totalities as they really are. There is nothing legitimately called “The French” or even “Socrates”; we each are large; we are each a multitude (from Walt Whitman, adapted).