Epistemic Tool Exists

This is a theory that states "There is such a thing as an epistemic tool."

Existence of Epistemic Tool was formulated by Paul Patton in 2019.1 It is currently accepted by Scientonomy community as the best available answer to the question.

Scientonomic History

Acceptance Record

Here is the complete acceptance record of Epistemic Tool Exists:

Community	Accepted From	Acceptance Indicators	Still Accepted	Accepted Until	Rejection Indicators
Scientonomy	23 February 2024	The existence claim became accepted as a result of the acceptance of the respective modification.	Yes

Suggestions To Accept

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

Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Date Assessed	Verdict	Verdict Rationale
Sciento-2019-0016	Scientonomy	26 December 2019	Accept the definition of epistemic tool, stating that a physical object or system is an epistemic tool for an epistemic agent, when there is a procedure by which the tool can provide an acceptable source of knowledge for answering some question under the employed method of that agent.	23 February 2024	Accepted	At the 2024 workshop, there was minimal discussion of this modification, as workshop participants were generally in favor of its acceptance. Jamie Shaw and Hakob Barseghyan expressed some misgivings about the definition and hoped that it could be made more succinct in the future. Specifically, it was noted that this formulation might in fact be a theorem or a law explaining how tools become epistemic tools rather than a definition. Yet, given this was the community’s only proposed definition of epistemic tool, they saw it as worth accepting with that caveat. Rebecca Muscant’s comment about what happens with systems of tools, as well as specifications that the definition only applies to physical tools (in the case of AI, only the hardware, not the software is a tool), further highlighted the need for the community to clarify the dynamics content implied by the definition in the future. At this point, the modification was accepted unanimously.

Question Answered

Epistemic Tool Exists is an attempt to answer the following question: Existence of Epistemic Tool.

See Existence of Epistemic Tool for more details.

Description

According to Patton, epistemic tools are an integral part of the process of scientific inquiry. Their existence is beyond doubt.

Reasons

No reasons are indicated for this theory.

If a reason supporting this theory is missing, please add it here.