Pentimentolism.

Versions · v4 → v4.4

Versions

The philosophy asks you to show your pivots. It shows its own.

Each version below is a layer. Each was true when it was published. Each next version was truer — but only because the older ones held it up. What follows is the philosophy's own repainting, in the open, from the top of the stack down to the earliest structured form.

  1. v4.4

    June 9, 2026

    Inherited Repair

    The Repair movement extends: when a canvas is inherited, the new painter owes a transferred form of Repair.

    • Section III gains a fourth movement-paragraph — Inherited Repair — for canvases shaped by lineages, traditions, positions, and names.
    • P3 rewritten to handle simultaneous multiplicity (across time and across rooms).
    • P4 parenthetical: "truer" clarified as authorial coherence, not metaphysical truth-access.

    Pressure-tested against eight cases (Cal/Gallant, slaveholder descendant, new CEO, family abuse, innocent inheritor, high generational distance, pattern-stopper, inheritor-as-also-victim).

  2. v4.3

    May 27, 2026

    Simultaneous multiplicity

    M1 extended: layers stack in time and also fan out in the moment.

    • One-line addition to M1: "Layers stack in time. They also fan out in the moment — different modes for different rooms. Same painter, many surfaces."
    • Manifesto carries a matching addition in rallying voice.

    Prompted by the persona question — see the Bowie essay, "Pentimentolism and the Persona."

  3. v4.2

    June 8, 2026

    P4 — Recover the Underpainted

    Section III restyled to painterly voice. A fourth practice added.

    • Section III rewritten — painterly voice restored (dropped clause-binding legal language).
    • P4 added: "Recover the Underpainted." When the surface has drifted from a truer earlier layer, find the milestone underneath and paint forward from it.
    • Guardrail: "the truest, not the earliest layer" — authorial coherence, not metaphysical claim.

    Anchored by Springsteen's Nebraska (Revision as Return essay).

  4. v4.1

    May 27, 2026

    Discrimination rule patched

    Three patches earned canonical status after pressure test.

    • Classification rule: a pattern becomes a layer when behavior demonstrably stops, not when the story changes.
    • Repair clause: a third movement in Section III — integration is necessary but insufficient when a layer marked someone else's life.
    • Anti-backdoor binding: refusing a pattern requires keeping the layer visible.

    Four hard cases (self-deception, harmful layers, novel alignment, anti-backdoor). Full account in the essay How Pentimentolism Tests Itself.

  5. v4

    May 21, 2026

    The clean structure

    A one-sentence definition committed to identity. Three metaphysical claims. Three practices. One discrimination rule.

    • Replaced v3's eight redundant tenets with 3 + 3 + 1.
    • Split metaphysics ("What is true") from practice ("What to do").
    • Resolved the brush/canvas confusion (you are the brush; your past is the canvas).
    • Resolved the truth/revision tension (the object is fixed; the grip is layered).

    The philosophy's first properly-structured canonical statement.

The philosophy is currently at v4.4. When the next revision earns canonical status, it will land at the top of this stack. The prior versions won't move — they'll still be right here, still true when they were made.