Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy

The old Constitution, even with the best of intentions, could not
succeed in accomplishing any of these tasks, because it burdened them
from the start with impossible mortgages. The desire was naturally
to gather in external reality, as faithfully as possible, but the same
effort prevented the requirement of perplexity from unfolding, be-
cause when the distinction between facts and values was imposed pre-
maturely, the candidates for existence never found their places. How
could the collective be put into a state of perplexity if the furnishings
of the common world were known in advance? There was a desire, of
course, to take the various opinions into account, in order to respond

SKILLS FOR THE COLLECTIVE

181

Box 4.2. Recapitulation of the investigations necessary to the functioning of

the two houses of the collective.

Upper house:power to take into account

Answers the question “How many are we?”

Perplexity

To meet the requirement of external reality:

—investigation into the best way of detecting propositions that are candidates

for existence, making them visible, and getting them to talk.

Consultation

To meet the requirement of relevance:

—investigation into the best means for constituting the jury capable of

judging the effects of each proposition on the habits of the others.

Lower house:power to arrange in rank order

Answers the question “Can we live together?”

Hierarchy

To meet the requirement of publicity:

—investigation into the contradictory scenarios that gradually make it

possible to compose an optimal hierarchy.

Institution

To meet the requirement of closure:

—investigation into the means to be used to stabilize the inside and the

outside of the collective.

Maintenance of the separation of powers and guarantee of the quality of the

procedures of exploration:

Power to follow through(see Chapter 5 and Box 5.1)