Neurath's boat

Neurath's boat is a simile used in anti-foundational accounts of knowledge, especially in the philosophy of science, which was first formulated by Otto Neurath. It is based in part on the Ship of Theseus which, however, is standardly used to illustrate other philosophical questions, to do with problems of identity. It was popularised by Willard Van Orman Quine in Word and Object (1960).

Neurath used the simile in several occasions, the first being in Neurath's text Problems in War Economics.

Stanovich, in his book The Robot's Rebellion, refers to it as a Neurathian bootstrap and uses it as an analogy to the recursive nature of revising one's beliefs. A "rotten plank" on the ship, for instance, might refer to a meme virus or a junk meme (i.e., a meme that is either maladaptive to the individual, or serves no beneficial purpose for the realization of an individual's life goals). It may be impossible to bring the ship to shore for repairs, therefore one may stand on planks that are not rotten in order to repair or replace the ones that are. At a later time, the planks previously used for support may be tested by standing on other planks that are not rotten:

In this way, one might proceed to examine and revise their beliefs so as to become more rational.

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