Idea Ripper // ArchiveCards: 1555 [Live] | Updated: 2026-10-14
Card #c771IR // #c771Synthesis

If two things don’t fit, but you believe both of them, thinking that somewhere, hidden, there must be a third thing that connects them, that’s credulity.

— In our words · Source: Foucault's Pendulum (Umberto Eco)

[Use when]

Use when someone patches a contradiction with a hidden connector instead of dropping one of the beliefs.

[Why it matters]

Casaubon's definition of credulity is the novel in one line: belief is not holding two incompatible ideas — it is inventing the invisible third that reconciles them. Every conspiracy in the book is that third thing.

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