The areas of knowledge are organized around the identification of their terms of reference and the relationships established between them. This is the rational basis of -among others- the methodology for the development of knowledge organization systems. The authority from which to select, evaluate or revise the terminology of these systems is established in relation to any of the twenty-one warrants (literary, cultural, etc.) that have been proposed and studied unequally and autonomously in the literature of the area. This paper intends to introduce initial notes and comments to advance towards an overall conception of the warrant notion. For this purpose, the expression “warrant” is studied as a word of the general language as well as a term of specialized languages. Then, the scope of application of the warrants is established. Next, each warrant is placed in one of the approaches proposed by Hjørland to categorize theories and methods (empiricism, rationalism, historicism and pragmatism). From the above, some lines of research problems are identified. A typological table that includes data on all the warrants established until now is proposed, and the first conclusions are drawn.