posited

Posited is the past tense of the verb posit, meaning to put forward as a fact or assumption for the purposes of argument or explanation. When a claim is posited, it is presented as a starting point or premise rather than as an established empirical result.

In philosophy, science, and related fields, researchers often posit mechanisms, relationships, or constraints to build theories or models. A posited relationship between variables may guide analysis, interpretation, and the design of further investigation, even if the relationship has not yet been demonstrated by data. In mathematics and logic, positing can refer to proposing a postulate or axiom that underpins a formal system, from which other results are derived.

Positing is often distinguished from hypothesis testing. A hypothesis is typically stated to be tested and potentially falsified, whereas positing emphasizes presenting a premise as a basis for reasoning. The terms postulate, hypothesis, and theory are related but carry different conventional implications in given disciplines.

Etymology: the verb posit derives from the Latin ponere, "to place," via Old French and Early Modern English developments, with the related noun posit used in discourse to denote a proposition set forth as a basis for argument.