creators_name: Dennett, Daniel C
editors_name: J, Brockman
editors_name: K, Matson
type: bookchapter
datestamp: 1998-05-03
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:53:47
metadata_visibility: show
title: How to Make Mistakes
ispublished: pub
subjects: appl-cog-psy
subjects: phil-mind
full_text_status: public
abstract: Making mistakes is the key to making progress. There are times, of course, when it is important not to make any mistakes--ask any surgeon or airline pilot. But it is less widely appreciated that there are also times when making mistakes is the secret of success. What I have in mind is not just the familiar wisdom of nothing ventured, nothing gained. While that maxim encourages a healthy attitude towards risk, it doesn't point to the positive benefits of not just risking mistakes, but actually of making them. Instead of shunning mistakes, I claim, you should cultivate the habit of making them. Instead of turning away in denial when you make a mistake, you should become a connoisseur of your own mistakes, turning them over in your mind as if they were works of art, which in a way they are. You should seek out opportunities to make grand mistakes, just so you can then recover from them.
date: 1995
date_type: published
publication: How Things Are
publisher: William Morrow and Company, New York
pagerange: 137-144
refereed: FALSE
citation:   Dennett, Daniel C  (1995) How to Make Mistakes.  [Book Chapter]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/288/1/howmista.htm