C.2.1:4.3 - Add empirical grounding through its own relation
Tech name: EpistemeEmpiricalGroundingRelation.
Plain reading: these designated empirical claims of this episteme are inspectable through exact observation, intervention, measurement, or test relations involving this grounding holon.
C.2.1 uses explicitly designated partial coverage. For one candidate grounding occurrence, select one exact nonempty claim subgraph C from the episteme’s already constitutive ClaimGraph. The occurrence says that every empirical claim in C is grounded; it says nothing about empirical claims outside C. To claim full empirical grounding for the episteme, C must contain every empirical claim in that episteme. Purely formal epistemes need no grounding occurrence merely to fill a record.
For every claim in C, state a concrete claim-to-world mapping under the episteme’s effective ReferenceScheme to independently governed direct observation, intervention, measurement, or test relation occurrences involving the exact grounding holon. The mapping names what observation, intervention outcome, measured characteristic, or test result bears on that claim. One measurement involving the same holon cannot ground an unrelated claim.
The selected claim subgraph is by-value predicate content drawn from the episteme’s ClaimGraph; it is not a third world-side relation participant, another episteme constituent, or a new U-kind. An assertion about grounding designates that subgraph and the claim-to-world mappings but creates none of the mapped occurrences.
Applying the shared declaration rule in 4.2.1, EpistemeEmpiricalGroundingRelationSignature is one declaration episteme whose exact EntityOfConcern is EpistemeEmpiricalGroundingRelation; the same individual has U.Signature membership and relation-facing RelationSignature use only under A.6.0. Its complete declaration includes the covered-claim-subgraph rule, obtaining predicate, maximal-continuous-interval identity rule, applicability, actual dependencies and provided names, and these participant SlotSpecs:
| SlotKind | Relation-participant meaning | ValueKind | refMode |
|---|---|---|---|
GroundedEpistemeSlot | episteme containing the exact covered claim subgraph | U.Episteme | U.EpistemeRef |
GroundingHolonSlot | exact holon involved in the mapped observation, intervention, measurement, or test relations | U.Holon | U.HolonRef |
EpistemeEmpiricalGroundingRelation over participants (E,H), with covered=C, obtains exactly while every empirical claim in exact covered claim subgraph C has a current claim-to-world mapping to the required independently governed direct observation, intervention, measurement, or test relation structure involving H under E’s effective ReferenceScheme. Every mapped relation required by that coverage must obtain. An exact direct evaluation relation counts as part of the empirical test only when the mapping states its concrete use in that test; otherwise evaluation and evidence can support or challenge an assertion about grounding but are not its world-side base.
One occurrence is identified by <episteme, exact covered claim subgraph, grounding holon, maximal continuous interval during which the complete coverage predicate is true>. Closing the open end of that interval refines the description of the same occurrence. Demonstrated failure of any required mapping followed by restored complete coverage yields another occurrence. Evidence or evaluation availability alone establishes neither obtaining nor nonobtaining and proves no temporal gap. If the complete coverage predicate is known to obtain, grounding continues without a stored report or work log. If it is known not to obtain, the relation does not obtain. If its truth is unknown, an affirmative grounding assertion has unresolved reliance for the declared use; that posture is not a third world-side grounding state.
The grounding holon need not be identical to the EntityOfConcern. One method-description episteme may have one grounding occurrence for a claim subgraph mapped to exact enactment work and another for a different claim subgraph mapped to the system whose behavior was observed. Each occurrence names its own C, H, and mappings. Sharing one grounding holon makes comparison inspectable but proves neither the same subject, the same claim content, nor coverage of any unlisted claim.