Scholarly critique stays docile when it revises detail without questioning foundations

Evidence

A dissenting author refuses the assumptions, the findings, and the received wisdom that characterize the docile author. The latter may engage in a critique of other docile authors, usually over details or relative details, but the critique never transgresses the boundaries of the commonly accepted assumptions of the discursive “tradition” or formation in which he or she operates. The épistémè, as Foucault would say, is never the issue. The docile author’s critique pertains to detail, to a revision of or addition to a preexisting and accepted narrative. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 338

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘docile author’ concept: critique restricted to detail within accepted foundational assumptions.
• XREF: Builds on Kuhn’s normal science and Foucault’s epistemé — paradigms where puzzle-solving never threatens the paradigm itself. — connects to: The will can reshape details but never its originating fundamental project — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1138; Scholarly work is never neutral but can still stay open to contrary evidence