The Art of Being Inconsequential. In Krytyka, No. 7–8 (189–190), 2013, pp. 36–37.

This text by Dmytro Shevchuk is devoted to the work of the Polish thinker Leszek Kołakowski, “In Praise of Inconsistency: or How to Be a Conservative‑Liberal Socialist”, which has been published in a Ukrainian translation. The book is a collection of essays devoted to a range of different issues, from philosophical to cultural and socio-political ones. One of the central themes of the work is inconsistency, or non-consequentiality, which is characteristic of Kołakowski’s ideas and for which he was repeatedly criticized by his opponents. In inconsistency, Kołakowski sees a sign of rational thinking that never stops at a previously obtained result, and even a mode of existence of philosophical texts themselves – texts that demand attentiveness and the ability to read between the lines. As a counterpoint to inconsistency, he names elementary situations in which consistent behaviour is required. Such situations give inconsistency particular weight, since they point to the choice of rational inquiry under complex conditions.