Criticizing a Difference of Contexts — On Reichenbach’S Distincition Between “Context of Discovery” and “Context of Justification”

Abstract

The distinction is critically reconstructed. It is possible to distinguish two different meanings of it: Justification contrasts with discovery; discovery and justification are parts of one and the same process. In the second case, two models can be found in Reichenbach: One places the two aspects of knowledge in temporally distinct phases, the other in two levels with parallel evolution. Reichenbach does not succeed in his effort to conceptualize the distinction as a distinction between two objects of investigation. But there are still useful applications of it, from which I discuss one referring to the practical conditions of justification.