Theoretical claims lose their provisional character if stated too cleanly

Evidence

I now know that one does not make those kinds of remarks and then go on to do something in detail. One has to make it clear in the structural behavior of one’s writing that what is happening here is an attempt in the dark. That’s I think how I would look at the genuine collection of responses that have come to me in terms of subalternity and its relationship to speaking. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 2306

Categorization

• QUESTION: Spivak admits her famous remark lacked the structural hedging it needed — worth chasing whether her later ‘strategic essentialism’ retraction is exactly such a caveat-bolt-on.
• XREF: connects to: Provisional identity claims are fine if kept under internal critique — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 2344; Essentialist-sounding definitions can be adopted provisionally without belief in essence — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 453; Scientific findings are provisional intermediate states that may later prove wrong — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 747

Broader Connections

• Essentialist-sounding definitions can be adopted provisionally without belief in essence #qualifies (0.75) — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 453
• Scientific findings are provisional intermediate states that may later prove wrong #corroborates (0.70) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 747