Cognitive Dissonance as Epistemic Event: Clientelism, Bounded Freedom, and the Architecture of Epistemic Fear

This paper reconceptualises cognitive dissonance as an epistemic event: the affective signal of solitude and finitude at the edge of knowledge. Drawing on Schopenhauer, phenomenology, and ontology, it demonstrates that contradiction is not accidental but structural. Anxiety discloses this finitude, while fear accelerates collapse into conformity, obedience, or epistemic clientelism — yielding only illusory freedom. Endurance, by contrast, enables bounded freedom, fragile in isolation but sustainable through fiduciary–epistemic scaffolds: institutional duties of candour, accountability, and openness that dignify dependence. The argument unfolds across psychology, philosophy, and governance, showing how academia, corporations, journalism, politics, and frontier domains such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and climate governance require scaffolds that preserve contradiction. The conclusion is stark: survival in conditions of radical uncertainty depends on fiduciary–epistemic scaffolds strong enough to sustain plurality against the temptation of closure. DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.16174.37449