Observation

Abstract

Of the many problems involved in discussions of acceptability and justification I wish to consider in this paper what types of sentences can be used in order to justify a given claim or theory in science, what types of sentence can be appealed to in testing (showing to be acceptable or rejecting) a theory or claim. Rather than rehashing old critcisms of previous work, or constructing new counters to works already known to be inadequate, I propose to get on with the problem at hand. Necessarily this ‘getting on’ is in large part a taxonomic and programmatic venture. I wishto suggest, briefly and by examples, that in fact there have been, and are, at least four different types of bases to which appeal is made in testing or justifying a theory or claim.