Changes

|Year=2019

|Abstract=The question of how we come to accept new theories is a central area of inquiry in scientonomic discourse. However, there has yet to be a formal discussion of the subjective ''reasons'' an agent may have for accepting theories. This paper explores these epistemic reasons and constructs a historically sensitive definition of ''reason''. This formulation takes an abstractionist stance towards the ontology of reasons and makes use of a composite basing relation. The descriptive and normative components of reasons are fully formulated in scientonomic terms through the application of the newly introduced notion of ''implication'', and its separation from the notion of ''inference''. In addition, the paper provides scientonomic definitions for ''sufficient reason'', ''support'', and ''normative inference''. The fruitfulness of this formulation of reasons is illustrated by a few examples.

|DOI=10.33137/js.v3i0.33557

|Page Status=Needs Editing