Summary The recent turn to the ‘context of discovery’ and other ‘postmodernist’ developments in the philosophy of science have undermined the idea of a universal rationality of science. This parallels the fate of the classical dream of a logic of discovery. Still, justificational questions have remained as a distinct perspective, though comprising both consequential and generative justification — an insight delayed by certain confusions about the (original) context distinction. An examination of one particular heuristic strategy shows its local rationality; even (...) as an efficient procedure of hypothesis generation, it carries probative weight. It will be explored in which respects such a strategy can be normative or contain normative elements. (shrink)