The 19th century Scottish novelist, Robert Louis Stevenson, once wrote a charming little article in praise of idleness. The problem was, he was a great fan of hard work. But he sidestepped the apparent contradiction with a neat analogy: to talk of the excitements of travel isn’t a denial of the love of home. To enthuse about loafing, dawdling, and lounging away an afternoon, isn’t to ignore the obvious benefits of strenuous application. So too with uncertainty: of course we want and need security, so far as it can reasonably be found, in our lives. But there are ways in which we might need, and even relish, uncertainty as well.
The issue of how uncertainty can serve us well arises at the very start of philosophy in the persona of Socrates. The typical opening phase
