An incomplete account can still matter. Someone may have noticed something important without having the words, records, or distance needed to explain it fully. The choice is not simply between believing everything and dismissing the account. There is also the work of keeping the question open without making the claim larger than its evidence.

Companion demonstration draft · ethics and uncertainty.

Say what is missing

Imagine receiving a description of a conversation from one participant. It offers a perspective, not a complete recording. Treating the missing parts as proof of deception would add a claim the description cannot support. Treating the account as complete would add a different unsupported claim.

A more careful note separates the reported event, the interpretation of it, and the questions that remain. This resembles the writing discipline of The Use of an Unfinished Note, but the stakes now include another person’s ability to be understood.

Leave room for correction

The Names We Give to Attention asks what a label makes visible. Here the question is what it might close prematurely. A provisional description should remain recognisably provisional when it is repeated.

That does not require indefinite hesitation. It requires clarity about what grounds a decision and what new information would change it. The boundary described in The Limits of a Useful Model becomes a responsibility: do not let the neatness of an account conceal the people or possibilities it leaves out.