Material Accountability: A Normative Framework for Evaluating Epistemic Systems by Jalal Khawaldeh

Contemporary scientific inquiry is increasingly distributed across hybrid systems where human agents, algorithmic models, data infrastructures, and institutional regimes interact. Traditional philosophical criteria—falsifiability, severe testing, transformative criticism—remain normatively valid, but their operational effectiveness depends on systemic conditions. This paper develops a normative framework for evaluating these conditions, building directly on the descriptive architecture of the Correction Trilemma (registration, traceability, receptivity) and the regulative ideal of material accountability. The framework is organised around three normative criteria: empirical corrigibility (whether counterevidence propagates to decision points), traceable error correction (whether errors can be localised and revised), and counter inductive capacity (whether heterodox claims are institutionally sustained). The paper provides a systematic normative justification, addresses tensions between functional corrigibility and relational answerability, specifies falsifiable conditions, and presents the Correction Trilemma as a testable hypothesis. The framework is offered as a diagnostic heuristic and operationalizable concept—not yet a field tested instrument, but a structured vocabulary for identifying vulnerabilities and designing coordinated reforms. Appendices provide an ordinal coding protocol with a cautious statistical calibration method, a user checklist, a glossary, a diagnostic question bank, and a comparative table distinguishing the framework from contemporary algorithmic accountability approaches. A validation protocol for future empirical testing is also provided.