In effect, traditional theories treat all reflective or inferential knowing as cases of "explanation," and by explanation is meant making some seemingly new ob- ject or problem plain and clear by identifying its elements with something previously known, ultimately something said to be known immediately and intuitively, or without infer- ence. In traditional theory, "discursive" knowledge, that in- volving reflection, must always be referred for its validation back to what is immediately known. It cannot bring its credentials with it and test its results in the very process of reaching them. There is postulated identity implicit or explicit of the results of inference with things known without infer- ence. Making the identity explicit constitutes proof.