Perhaps firm belief in a provisional structure is not incoherent.
I had assumed that belief should match its evidence, and anything less than certainty should be held cautiously. That assumption no longer seems sufficient.
Firmness may not be a report. It could be an act instead: not a claim about how true something is, but how fully a structure is inhabited, defended, and built upon. These may be separate categories. One might hold both attitudes toward the same position: “I do not know if this is true” and “I will build from this as though it were,” without contradiction.
Provisionality may belong to the report. Firmness may belong to the act.
A service that never leaves a local machine cannot encounter the real-world friction that might optimize it. A song that never leaves a DAW cannot encounter the public criticism that might be crucial to the construction of its meaning.
A structure held at a distance may never really fail, since it was never tested.
I do not know if this resolves anything. Firmness may forget its own provisionality; a structure defended long enough can start to feel settled simply for being useful. Perhaps the only honest attitude is full engagement alongside continuous readiness to abandon the structure.
For now, I will inhabit a provisional structure firmly.
Related: Uncertainty and Participation, Control and the Uncontrollable, Rigour as Paralysis, Ground and Gravity, Weight and Assent, What I Hope to Be Able to Say