Intellectual Risk

In scholarly writing, intellectual risk refers to the degree to which an author ventures beyond established knowledge, offering bold hypotheses, challenging existing paradigms, or proposing innovative interpretations that could be controversial, falsifiable, or disruptive to conventional thinking. It often involves:

Asking uncomfortable or unorthodox questions

Proposing new frameworks or explanations

Critically evaluating accepted practices or beliefs

Publishing negative or unexpected findings

Exposing methodological limitations, including one's own