In this article the author argues that cognitive accountability requires that modernity constitutively needs to invite translation of the discourses that claim to present knowledge, that knowledge is usefully characterized in terms of creative continuations of action types; that this characterization leads to models that make the power-knowledge nex optional and contingent; that pursuit of these themes can help u out of the mssionary predicament we are trapped in; and that the missionary and industrial readings of our cognitive predicament are mutually convertible.