A Notion of C-Justification for Empirical Statements

Abstract

After having argued that Prawitz’s notion of ground for A is not epistemically transparent when A is an empirical statement (Sect. 18.2), a non-factive and defeasible notion of C -justification (“ C ” for “computational”) for empirical statements is defined and proposed as the key notion of the theory of meaning. C -justifications for A are conceived as cognitive states (Sect. 18.3), and are defined by recursion on the logical complexity of A. In the atomic case (Sect. 18.4) they are defined in terms of two other concepts: the one of C -authorization to use a name to refer to a given entity, and the one of C -authorization to use a predicate in order to apply an accessible concept to objects. In the logically complex cases (Sect. 18.5) the meaning of the logical constants as applied to empirical statements is discussed, and the necessity is shown of Nelson’s strong negation besides intuitionistic negation. In the conclusion (Sect. 18.6) it is argued that the notion defined is epistemically transparent and not exposed to traditional objections.