Domain modules
Philosophical Reasoning
Someone claims a path is good, another asks why, and the argument that follows needs words sharper than "think" and "true" to hold together: a premise from a conclusion, a valid argument from a sound one, a doubt from a refutation. Claim, evidence, reason, and criterion belong to base vocabulary because that exchange is ordinary life. Twenty-one narrower roots form the optional toolkit around them.
Like every module, the specialized words are optional and use ordinary Phi grammar. A speaker who has not learned them can always ask for a core paraphrase. Learning them supplies vocabulary, and vocabulary has never made anyone right.
The chapter table below introduces 21 module roots. Shared classification brings the optional learning list to 24 words; four base words are taught alongside it. The complete machine-generated list is available under Philosophical Reasoning in the module lexicon. The JSON entries in vocabulary/content/ remain authoritative for each word's form and full definition.
Core vocabulary used by the module
The module does not replace what Phi already says about thought and dialogue. It adds narrower distinctions around these familiar resources.
| Area | Core Phi resources |
|---|---|
| Thought and stance | remo think, nohero believe, sano know, shelomu understand, hiru intuit, kanelu err |
| Truth and accuracy | shewo true, theloa truth, telua accurate, phelira mistaken |
| Meaning and explanation | reo meaning, relo symbol, shelo signify, lilea clarify, solae explain, thelima describe |
| Sources and modality | hi direct evidence, ke inference, ti report, ho assumption, po possibility, na necessity, ma negation |
| Dialogue and repair | shareo discuss, nawo agree, naweri refuse, thekao acknowledge, shorela rephrase, shekoi specify, shelao summarize |
| Values and choice | sone value, rolia worth, noetha essential, kanu choose, kelomi accept, numike negotiate, seru commit, thonai responsible |
| Claims and judgment | sherewa claim, thesori evidence, remotha reason, kirema criterion |
Claims, evidence, reasons, and criteria belong to base vocabulary
The canonical entries for sherewa, thesori, remotha, and kirema have no modules field. A household disagreement may need a claim and a reason; a care decision may turn on evidence and a criterion. Neither setting requires specialist philosophy, though the module gives each word sharper company.
Module roots introduced in this chapter
| Phi | Part of speech | Working sense | Essential contrast |
|---|---|---|---|
mothare | noun | premise; a starting claim in an argument | A premise is a role inside an argument, and a role does not by itself guarantee truth. |
remuma | noun | conclusion; the claim reached by reasoning | A conclusion is reached by an argument, distinct from lumae, the plain final point in a sequence. |
themore | noun | argument; premises organized to support a conclusion | An argument is a structure of support, not a quarrel and not a bare dialogue. |
whakeru | verb | object; raise a specific problem for response | An objection raises a problem for someone to answer; it is not yet a refusal or a refutation. |
kethira | verb | infer; reach a conclusion from premises | Inferring is the act of reasoning itself, distinct from the inferential evidential particle ke. |
hoshemi | noun | hypothesis; a proposed explanation or relation under examination | A hypothesis is tested against evidence; a premise is a proposition serving a role inside an argument. |
natheri | verb | entail; imply by necessity | Entailment is necessity, stronger than mere support or a chain of causes. |
kithela | adjective | valid; having premises that entail the conclusion | Validity is a structural fact about the argument's form; the premises can still be false. |
phiketu | verb | contradict; be unable to be true together under the same conditions | Contradiction is impossibility together, stronger than disagreement or plain difference. |
letharo | adjective | consistent; able to be true together | Consistency says two claims can be true together; it never says that either one is actually true. |
phisuwa | noun | example; a particular illustrating case | The noun names the case itself, where phisu is the discourse marker that introduces one aloud. |
phiwheki | noun | counterexample; a case showing a general claim false as stated | A counterexample falls inside a general claim's scope and lacks the property assigned to every case; a merely surprising case does not. |
whekate | verb | refute; show that a claim or inference fails | Refuting takes real work: an objection or a disagreement alone does not amount to a refutation. |
kirothe | verb | define; state meaning or conditions of application | Defining draws a boundary of application, narrower than describing or simply clarifying. |
remole | noun | concept; an organized idea | A concept stands apart from the word that names it, the symbol that points to it, and any one example used to illustrate it. |
sherelo | noun | right; a normative claim that can bind conduct or institutions | A right can remain live while denied; shereni entitlement begins with recognition and scope. |
sharino | noun | conscience; moral self-appraisal | Conscience weighs one's own conduct, while waeli consciousness names subjective awareness more broadly. |
whamoi | verb | doubt; remain unsettled about a proposition | Doubting stays unsettled; it is neither a denial nor a refutation. |
norethi | adjective | confident; hold a strong but revisable stance | Confidence is a strong stance held with room to revise, and it is not the same as knowledge, truth, or authority. |
soneho | noun | tradeoff; a valued gain joined to a valued loss | A tradeoff joins a real gain to a real loss; simply having several options on the table is not yet one. |
manawi | verb | compromise; agree through mutual concession | Compromising reaches agreement through concession from more than one side; the word alone says nothing about whether the result is fair. |
Verbs used in this chapter receive their event or result nouns through Phi's ordinary event-noun rule: sherewa can name a claim, kethira an inference, whakeru an objection, whekate a refutation, kirothe a definition, whamoi doubt, and manawi a compromise. The adjectives kithela, letharo, and norethi likewise name validity, consistency, and confidence through the quality-noun rule; their entries remain verb-only or adjective-only as required by the lexicon schema.
Claims, premises, and conclusions
sherewa is the act of putting a proposition forward, whether the speaker believes it fully, holds it provisionally, or states it only to have it examined. mothare and remuma name the two roles a themore gives its claims: premises offered as support, and the conclusion the argument reaches for.
mia tha ha ruela welao nai tho sherewa.
1SG DECL.COMP PROX path good be DECL.COMP.CLOSE claim.
lo mothare ha remuma panoru.
PL premise PROX conclusion support.
ha themore kithela nai.
PROX argument valid be.
An objection names a difficulty and leaves it standing for someone to answer, without pretending the difficulty has already won.
mia tha ha mothare shewo ma nai tho whakeru.
1SG DECL.COMP PROX premise true NEG be DECL.COMP.CLOSE object.
Evidence, reasons, and inference
thesori names material offered for assessment, and offering it is only the first step: the particles hi, ke, ti, and ho still mark how the speaker claims to know a verb's content, but none of them certifies that the evidence itself is any good. remotha names the justifying ground behind a claim, and kethira names the reasoning step that carries premises to a conclusion.
ha thesori ha sherewa panoru.
PROX evidence PROX claim support.
mia lue lo mothare ha remuma kethira.
1SG ABL PL premise PROX conclusion infer.
natheri claims something stronger than support: that the first proposition simply cannot be true, under the stated reading, while the second is false.
ha mothare ha remuma natheri.
PROX premise PROX conclusion entail.
Hypotheses under examination
The river rises after three days of rain. One speaker proposes the rain as an explanation; another wonders about a blocked channel. Each proposed account is a hoshemi, available for comparison before either becomes a fact by conversational impatience.
ha thesori ha hoshemi panoru.
PROX evidence PROX hypothesis support.
phirae hoshemi is an alternative hypothesis. A formal statistical procedure keeps its complete hypothesis and test record with the source; Phi can say how that record enters the present inquiry.
Emergence and correlation
Two Systems words also belong to this learning path. harusi is emergence: a pattern at the level of a whole arising through interactions among its components. hosari is correlation: two variables differing together across stated observations. Neither is a causal explanation wearing a slightly more technical coat.
ha harusi lo monaki lorea pherami.
PROX emergence PL component connect depend.
ha wuneri nela ra wuneri hosari phelu.
PROX variable COORD DIST variable correlation hold.
A hoshemi may propose what causes the correlation or how the emergent pattern arises. Evidence can support that hypothesis, and a counterexample can trouble it. These nouns let speakers identify the question before deciding its answer.
Validity, contradiction, and refutation
A kithela themore is valid by its structure alone, even when one of its premises turns out false. Claims are letharo when they can be true together and phiketu when they cannot, under the same interpretation and the same conditions.
ha sherewa ra sherewa phiketu.
PROX claim DIST claim contradict.
lo sherewa letharo nai.
PL claim consistent be.
Suppose a claim says that every seed in one jar is red. A pale seed from that jar is a phiwheki; a pale seed from somewhere else tells us nothing about the claim. The first seed lets us whekate the claim as stated.
ha phiwheki ra sherewa whekate.
PROX counterexample DIST claim refute.
Concepts, definitions, and criteria
remole keeps an organized idea separate from the phelui that names it, the relo that symbolizes it, the reo it carries, and any single phisuwa used to illustrate it. kirothe proposes a boundary of application; kirema names the standard applied at that boundary.
mia shea kirothe.
1SG peace define.
ha phisuwa kirothe lilea.
PROX example define clarify.
ha remole ruka nai.
PROX concept complex be.
Necessary and sufficient conditions need no separate roots of their own. Direction does the work: if category membership entails (natheri) the criterion, the criterion is necessary; if satisfying the criterion entails membership, it is sufficient. When both directions hold, one criterion is doing both jobs at once.
Rights and conscience
A council recognizes an entitlement. A person claims a right that the council has denied. shereni and sherelo keep those sentences apart: recognition is part of the first word's definition, while the second leaves recognition open to challenge.
theula miona lo kolo sherelo phelu.
UNIV person PL equal right hold.
sharino turns the examination inward. It is the faculty that weighs one's own conduct against what one takes to be right, and it may object without becoming an infallible voice.
mia sharino mia phoa whakeru.
1SG conscience 1SG do object.
The paired Article 1 tests both distinctions in adjacent claims. Its translation grants all people thought and conscience as faculties; its transmutation gives them the capacity to think and the heart's knowing.
Doubt and confidence
whamoi lets a speaker stay genuinely unsettled without denying anything. norethi reports the strength of a stance while leaving truth, knowledge, and authority as their own separate questions.
mia tha ha remuma kithela nai tho whamoi.
1SG DECL.COMP PROX conclusion valid be DECL.COMP.CLOSE doubt.
mia norethi nai.
1SG confident be.
A principled suspension of judgment stays compositional: tha ... tho nohero ma kanu says explicitly that the speaker declines to choose the framed belief. Different uncertainties need not be mistaken for separate lexical states.
Tradeoffs and compromise
soneho holds a valued gain and a valued loss inside one concept, and it earns its keep only when followed by enough explanation to show which outcomes matter and who carries each burden. manawi names agreement reached through concession, and the word blesses none of it as fair or freely chosen.
ha kanu soneho phelu.
PROX choose tradeoff hold.
mia nua thia to manawi.
1SG COM 2SG PST compromise.
Useful transparent compositions
Some useful philosophical expressions remain clearer as combinations because their parts expose the intended analysis.
| Phi expression | Practical meaning | Why it remains compositional |
|---|---|---|
sherewa remotha | reason for a claim | Keeps the justificatory relation explicit. |
sone noa | priority; value-position | Lets priorities be compared without treating any one ranking as universal. |
remo noa | standpoint or perspective; thought-position | Keeps a perspective tied to a situated act of thinking. |
kithela themore | valid argument | Uses the ordinary modifier-first relation. |
noetha kirema | essential criterion | Names importance without silently claiming logical sufficiency. |
phirae hoshemi | alternative hypothesis | Uses ordinary difference while preserving the kind of proposal being compared. |
tha ... tho nohero ma kanu | suspend judgment; decline to choose the framed belief | States exactly what the speaker is withholding. |
Source philosophical vocabulary
Tradition-specific terms, formal notation, and exact quotations stay outside the Phi passage in the surrounding medium. A module word may help explain a source concept, but it should never stand in as an exhaustive translation unless the underlying distinctions genuinely match. A pronunciation aid for a foreign term remains an outside conversational convention, not a class of Phi word.