Epistemic Elements - Questions and Theories (Barseghyan-2018)

An attempt to answer the question of Epistemic Elements which states "The two basic classes of elements that can undergo scientific change are questions and theories, where each theory is an attempt to answer a certain question, and method is a subtype of normative theory."

Epistemic Elements - Questions and Theories was formulated by Hakob Barseghyan in 2018.1 It is currently accepted by Scientonomy community as the best available theory on the subject.

History

Acceptance Record

Here is the complete acceptance record of Epistemic Elements - Questions and Theories (Barseghyan-2018):

Community	Accepted From	Acceptance Indicators	Still Accepted	Accepted Until	Rejection Indicators
Scientonomy	1 September 2019	The ontology became accepted as a result of the acceptance of the respective suggested modification.	Yes

Suggestions To Accept

Here are all the modifications where the acceptance of this theory has been suggested:

Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Verdict	Verdict Rationale	Date Assessed
Sciento-2018-0006	Scientonomy	8 October 2018	Accept the new ontology of epistemic elements with, theories and questions are the two basic epistemic elements where and each theory is an attempt to answer a certain question, theories can be of three types – descriptive, normative, or definitions, and methods are a subtype of normative theory.	Accepted	Following a series of off-line discussions, a consensus emerged concerning this modification: it was agreed that the modification is to be accepted.c1 It was mentioned that most of the elements of this new ontology "has already been accepted by the scientonomic community".c2 It was also stressed that "the consensus has been manifested on several occasions, including the first scientonomy conference in May 2019 in Toronto, where several of the presenters treated this new ontology as accepted."c3 The fact that the consensus concerning this modification has been achieved primarily off-line, i.e. outside of the discussion pages of this encyclopedia suggests that the scientonomic "workflow must have a way of accommodating these discussions".c4	1 September 2019

Question Answered

Epistemic Elements - Questions and Theories (Barseghyan-2018) is an attempt to answer the following question: What are the fundamental epistemic elements that undergo scientific change?

See Epistemic Elements for more details.

Description

Hakob Barseghyan presenting the key aspects aspects of the redrafted ontology

In this ontology of epistemic elements, theories are conceived of as attempts to answer certain questions. Theories can be of three types – descriptive, normative, or definitions. Method is understood as a subtype of normative theory. The ontology also posits that both questions and theories of all types – including methods – can be accepted. Finally, the ontology suggests that normative theories of all types can be employed.