Keele Research Repository

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It is sometimes assumed that justification is factive. A negative implication of this claim is that reasons are not psychological entities such as believings or desirings. Another, positive, implication of this claim is that there is an important connection between justification and truth. If it is not raining, Paul is not justified in taking the umbrella not only because his believing it is raining is not the sort of thing which can play a justificatory role, but also because no action can be justified by something that is not the case. Elaborating on the work of Collingwood and Dray, this paper argues that there is a notion of justification at work in a hermeneutic context that is not factive but which is nonetheless sufficiently robust to support the view that the explanation of action is normative and, as such, a species of justification rather than descriptive/causal explanation.