Andreas Kemmerling

Assuming that there are correct basic norms, is there a way to explain their correctness? Paul does not think so, and he argues that a certain family of strategies for explaining the correctness of one particular class of basic epistemic norms does not work. The norms in question are those which concern the acceptance of ID-sentences, i.e. sentences which are, or seem to be, the implicit definiens of at least one of their words; or to put it differently: sentences the acceptance of which is, or appears to be, in some sense constitutive of the meaning of at least one of their words. The family of strategies in question is what Paul calls the semantogenetic approach. The basic tenet of this approach is as follows: