justifions

Justifions is a theoretical unit of justification used in discussions of argumentation and epistemic reasoning. A justifion represents a minimal, contestable reason or piece of evidence that, when combined with rules of inference, licenses the acceptance of a claim within a given context.

Origin and scope: The term is a neologism introduced in speculative discussions to formalize how complex arguments are built from smaller justificational elements. It is not established in mainstream philosophy and varies in definition across authors.

Formal properties: Justifions are considered elementary and composable; they may be defeasible and context-dependent. A justifion has attributes such as strength, relevance, and sufficiency to support a claim. They can be aggregated into chains or trees to model argumentative structure.

Applications: In argument-mapping, justifions serve as the nodes that carry evidential weight. In informal logic and AI, they can be used to represent justificational steps in automated reasoning or natural-language explanations.

Example: A justifion might be “X is true because Y” where Y is the supporting premise. A chain of justifions could justify “Z” by combining multiple supports.

Critique: Critics argue that the notion may be too granular or context-sensitive to permit stable standards of evaluation. Others question whether justification can be cleanly decomposed into modular units.

See also: justification, warrant, premise, inference, argumentation theory.