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AFTER CERTAINTY

book

I Was Wrong: The Meanings of Apologies

Smith, Nick. I Was Wrong: The Meanings of Apologies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Why this matters here

Nick Smith analyzes what apologies can and cannot do—categorical distinctions among expressions that look like repair. When Accountability No Longer Expires pairs that analysis with correction that never reaches consequence, so apology-shaped speech can feel like virtue while leaving the world unchanged. Smith maps apology’s meanings; the book asks when learning without resolution makes correction itself the substitute for accountability.