The Audit Vocabulary v0.1

 

The Audit Vocabulary v0.1

Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.

---

The Beginning

Sterling ends Core Stoicism by telling anyone who would pick and choose among the theorems to “be very careful to look at what supports what” (ISF, 19 September 2005).

The Stoic 500 names a man’s work on his own impressions. This list names the other work the corpus now does: checking whether a text shows what supports what, and what a figure’s argument requires. Every term is taken from an instrument or ruling in force, and each is cited to it.

---

I. From Core Stoicism

• 1. Support. What a proposition rests on. (Core Stoicism, closing.)
• 2. Theorem (Th). One of “the basic principles of Stoicism, for which I give no argument here.” (Core Stoicism, preface.)
• 3. Ergo-Line. A line derived from earlier lines. (Core Stoicism.)
• 4. Interconnection. Theorems that support one another, so that “denying one principle may undermine support for others.” (Core Stoicism, closing.)
• 5. Collapse. The loss of every line that depends on a denied theorem: the “house of cards.” (Core Stoicism, closing, on Th7.)

---

II. Kinds of Proposition

• 6. Foundational. A proposition at the base, not derived. (DTI Step 2.)
• 7. Derived. A proposition that rests on others. (DTI Step 2.)
• 8. Empirical. A claim of fact that needs a source outside the corpus. (DTI Steps 2, 7.)
• 9. Definitional. A statement of what a term means. (DTI Step 2.)
• 10. Restatement. A repetition of earlier content that carries no weight. (DTI Step 2.)

---

III. The Trace

• 11. Upward-Trace. Naming and locating what a proposition rests on. (DTI Step 3.)
• 12. Downward-Trace. Recording what rests on a proposition. (DTI Step 4.)
• 13. Located. Support named by the document and found where it says. (DTI Step 3.)
• 14. Unlocatable. Support not named, or named and not found. (DTI Step 3.)
• 15. Decoration. A proposition with nothing above it and nothing below it. (DTI Step 4.)
• 16. Under-the-Thesis. Lying on the chain of support beneath the thesis. (DTI Steps 4, 7; R-2026-10-08-10.)
• 17. Substitution-Test. Asking whether removing the support falsifies the proposition or only loosens it. (DTI Step 5.)
• 18. Confirmed. Removing the support falsifies the proposition, so the derivation holds. (DTI Step 5.)
• 19. Loosened. Removing the support only weakens the proposition: coherence “wearing the grammar of derivation.” (DTI Step 5.)
• 20. Stabilized-Set. The Derived propositions remaining after the substitution test. Ratios are taken only against this set. (DTI Step 5.)

---

IV. The Guards

• 21. Base. The commitments, and every proposition marked “Th” in Core Stoicism. (DTI Step 6; R-2026-10-08-02.)
• 22. Protected-Claim. A proposition treated as foundational that the base does not include. (DTI Step 6.)
• 23. Empirical-Gate. The requirement that a claim of fact carry a declared source. (DTI Step 7.)
• 24. Declared-Source. A source named in the text. Marking a claim as unverified does not count as one. (R-2026-10-08-03.)
• 25. Contamination-Guard. The check against support found only by shared vocabulary. (DTI Step 3; CDS v0.2.)

---

V. Failure Modes

• 26. Associative-Justification. Citing a theorem because it shares words with the claim. (DTI.)
• 27. Retrofitting. Finding support after reading the claim and calling it the ground. (DTI.)
• 28. Protection-by-Elevation. Typing a contested proposition Foundational to exempt it from trace. (DTI.)
• 29. Restatement-as-Derivation. Repeating Th10 in other words and treating that as inference from it. (DTI.)
• 30. Author-Deference. Relaxing the trace because the document is corpus-internal or ratified. (DTI.)
• 31. Completed-Trace. A derivation the auditor supplies on the document’s behalf. It voids the run. (DTI, Self-Audits.)

---

VI. Verdicts

• 32. Traced. (DTI Step 8.)
• 33. Partially-Traced. (DTI Step 8.)
• 34. Untraced. The document has not shown its work, which is not a claim that it is wrong. (DTI Step 8.)
• 35. HALT. The instrument stops: the thesis cannot be found, more than half of a stabilized set of twenty or more is Unlocatable, or the run could go on only by supplying a derivation. (DTI.)
• 36. Ratio-Advisory. The report for a run whose stabilized set is below twenty. (DTI Step 8.)

---

VII. The Presupposition Audit

• 37. Presupposition. What a figure must hold in order to argue as he does. (CPA v1.2, I.)
• 38. Load-Bearing. A presupposition whose abandonment would cause structural damage to the figure’s argument. One he could abandon without that damage is peripheral and does not enter the audit. (CPA v1.2, II.)
• 39. Charity. The most philosophically favorable interpretation consistent with the figure’s stated positions. By ruling, it selects the coherent reading, not the milder verdict. (CPA v1.2, II; ruling of 20 September 2026.)
• 40. Aligned. The record requires presuppositions that correspond to the commitment in both structure and substance. (CPA v1.2, III.)
• 41. Partially-Aligned. Correspondence in some domains but not others, or in structure but not in full substance, with a precisely stated residual. It is not a softened Contrary. (CPA v1.2, III.)
• 42. Residual. The specific divergence that prevents an Aligned finding, which must be identified precisely. (CPA v1.2, III.)
• 43. Contrary. The record requires presuppositions that directly contradict the commitment, load-bearing across the argument as a whole. (CPA v1.2, III.)
• 44. Inconsistent. The record requires contradictory presuppositions about the commitment in different domains. (CPA v1.2, III.)
• 45. Non-Operative. The commitment’s domain is genuinely absent from the record. It requires a positive showing and may not be used to avoid a Contrary. (CPA v1.2, III.)
• 46. Dissolution. Full where C1 and C2 are both Contrary; Partial where one is Contrary and the other Partially Aligned or Non-Operative; none where neither is Contrary. (CPA v1.2, III.)
• 47. Recorded-not-Tested. A divergence noted beside the findings, such as what a figure did with the chain. (Reid run ruling.)
• 48. Expository-Exception. Where a figure’s record in a domain is exposition throughout, and he is shown to mark distance elsewhere but not here, the expounded material is admitted as his presupposition and tagged. (CPA v1.2, II.)

---

VIII. Layers and Standing

• 49. Sterling-Primary. Sterling’s dated words. (Attribution standard.)
• 50. Synthesis. Dave Kelly’s analysis, kept apart from Sterling’s words. (Attribution standard.)
• 51. Rendering. Claude’s prose, which carries no doctrinal authority. (Attribution line.)
• 52. Ratified-Reading. A reading Dave Kelly has ruled on. (The commitment study notes.)
• 53. Operator. The one whose sign-off makes an output count. (Standing rule: no output without an operator.)
• 54. Support-vs-Connection. Beliefs that rest on one another, as against beliefs held separately and then joined. (Sterling, 5 June 2017.)
• 55. Necessity-not-Truth. The corpus claims the chain needs the commitments, not that the commitments are proven. (C2 — What the Commitment Carries: A Study Note; The Commitments in Practice.)
• 56. Act-vs-Profession. Acting from a commitment, as against professing it. (The Commitments in Practice.)

---

Related Documents

• Reading a DTI Run: Instructions, with the Run on “The Commitments in Practice” as Example v0.1, which applies Sections II–VI of this list.
• DTI Run — The Commitments in Practice v0.1 — Version 1.0, a run that uses these terms throughout.

---

Sources

• Core Stoicism (ISF, 19 September 2005).
• The Derivation Trace Instrument (DTI) — Version 0.3.
• The Classical Presupposition Audit (CPA) — Version 1.2.
• The Ruling Register: R-2026-10-08-02, -03 and -10; the ruling of 20 September 2026 on charity; the ruling on the Reid run.
• Sterling, 5 June 2017, “Re: Basic Stoic Ethical Principles,” in “Stoicism, Foundationalism and the Structure of Ethical Knowledge.”
• The Stoic 500.

---

Theoretical foundations: Grant C. Sterling (Eastern Illinois University). Analysis and synthesis: Dave Kelly. Prose rendering: Claude (Anthropic). 2026.