Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance Use and Pursuit
How ought a scientonomic theory deal with the various stances that a community might take towards a theory? Which stances towards a theory ought a scientonomic theory account for?
Communities may take several epistemic stances towards theories. Theories can be accepted by a community as the best currently available description of the world. Even when they are not so accepted, they can be deemed instrumentally useful for certain problems. They can be deemed promising and worthy of pursuit. The question at issue here is that of which of these stances need a scientonomic theory account for. Ought it account only for accepted theories, or ought it also account for scientists decisions to pursue theories as worthy of further development, or their decisions to treat theories as instrumentally useful?
In the scientonomic context, this question was first formulated by Hakob Barseghyan in 2015. The question is currently accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by Scientonomy community.
In Scientonomy, the accepted answer to the question is:
- Scientonomy ought to address the issue of how transitions from one accepted theory to another take place and what logic governs this evolution, and need not deal in questions of theory pursuit or use.
Contents
Broader History
In its most general sense, the key question at issue is that of what ontological units a scientonomic theory ought to take as its subject matter. The specific form of the question has evolved with changing notions of those ontological units. Thomas Kuhn's theory of scientific change identified the ontological units of scientific change as frameworks which he referred to as paradigms, which can be defined as a characteristic set of beliefs and preconceptions held by a scientific community including instrumental, theoretical, and metaphysical commitments all together. 12 Kuhn himself confessed that he had confusingly used the term in several different senses. 2 In an attempt to clarify matters he sought to replace his broadest definition of the paradigm, given above, with the concept of disciplinary matrices, defined as those shared elements that account for the relatively unproblematic professional communication and relative unanimity of professional judgment within a scientific community. 3 For Kuhn, then, a theory of scientific change ought to deal with disciplinary matrices and their changes over time. While for Kuhn, paradigms or disciplinary matrices were primary, there was likewise confusion about the different stances a community might take towards a theory. Kuhn used a number of equally vague words, including universally received, embraced, acknowledged, and committed to describe the status of theories within scientific communities. 1
The prehistory of ontologies of scientific change is best discussed elsewhere. The question at issue can only be stated in its current form given the specific ontology of scientific change assumed by the Barseghyan theory.
Until a proper taxonomy of epistemic stances towards theories was formulated the question at issue could not be clearly framed
Scientonomic History
Acceptance Record of the Question
Community | Accepted From | Acceptance Indicators | Still Accepted | Accepted Until | Rejection Indicators |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Scientonomy | 1 January 2016 | That is when the community accepted its first answer to this question, the Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015), which indicates that the question is itself considered legitimate. | Yes |
All Direct Answers
Theory | Formulation | Formulated In |
---|---|---|
Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015) | Scientonomy ought to address the issue of how transitions from one accepted theory to another take place and what logic governs this evolution, and need not deal in questions of theory pursuit or use. | 2015 |
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Accepted Direct Answers
Community | Theory | Formulation | Accepted From | Accepted Until |
---|---|---|---|---|
Scientonomy | Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015) | Scientonomy ought to address the issue of how transitions from one accepted theory to another take place and what logic governs this evolution, and need not deal in questions of theory pursuit or use. | 1 January 2016 |
Suggested Modifications
Current View
In Scientonomy, the accepted answer to the question is Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015).
Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015) states: "Scientonomy ought to address the issue of how transitions from one accepted theory to another take place and what logic governs this evolution, and need not deal in questions of theory pursuit or use."
Scientonomy currently recognizes several different stances that an epistemic community might take towards a theory. The community might accept the theory as the best currently available description of the world, it might regard a theory as worthy of pursuit and further development, or it might regard the theory as adequate for use for some practical purpose, while not the best description of the world. 4 These stances, and their opposites (i.e. that a theory is unaccepted, neglected, or unused)together constitute the range of stances that a community might take towards a theory. The concept of a scientific mosaic consisting of the set of all theories accepted, and all methods employed by the community 4 is central to scientonomy, as is the goal of explaining all changes in this mosaic. To fulfill this central goal, a scientonomic theory ought to explain how transitions from one accepted theory to another take place, and what logic governs that transition, but it doesn't necessarily need to explain why some theories are pursued and others neglected and why some are used and others remain unused. 4
Related Topics
This question is a subquestion of Scope of Scientonomy.
This topic is also related to the following topic(s):
- Theory Use
- Theory Pursuit
- Ontology of Scientific Change
- Scope of Scientonomy - Explicit and Implicit
- Scope of Scientonomy - Construction and Appraisal
- Scope of Scientonomy - Descriptive and Normative
- Scope of Scientonomy - Individual and Social
- Scope of Scientonomy - Time Fields and Scale
- Epistemic Stances Towards Theories
- Theory Acceptance