The Paradox of Normative Propositions

If methodologies are themselves theories that can be accepted by a community, then how can methods be deductive consequences of accepted theories, given that historically employed methods and accepted methodologies have often been inconsistent with one another?

Methodologies, the rules of theory assessment openly prescribed by a scientific community, are one species of normative propositions. Methodologies are prescriptive, as they prescribe how theory assessment within a scientific community ought to be performed. There are many historical cases where employed scientific methods are known to conflict with professed methodologies. For example: eighteenth and nineteenth century scientists openly accepted a version of the empiricist inductivist methodology, which required new theories to be deducible from phenomena and not posit any unobservable entities. However, these scientists still accepted theories that posited unobservable entities, such as phlogiston, electric fluid, or absolute space.1pp. 52-53 This seems to violate either the third law or the zeroth law of scientific change. By the third law, employed methods are always deductive consequences of accepted theories. But, this seems impossible in cases where accepted methodologies and employed methods conflict. Under the zeroth law, all elements in the scientific mosaic are compatible with one another. But, that seems to be clearly not the case if methodologies and methods conflict with one another. How can this paradox be resolved?

In the scientonomic context, this question was first formulated by Joel Burkholder in 2014. The question is currently accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by Scientonomy community.

In Scientonomy, the accepted answer to the question is:

• The new third law resolves the paradox of normative propositions by making it clear that employed methods don't necessarily follow from all accepted theories, but only from some.

Scientonomic History

Within the scientonomic context, it was initially unclear whether normative propositions (such as those of methodology or ethics) fell within the scope of scientonomy and could hold a place within a scientific mosaic. The problem became acute when the paradox of normative propositions was identified by Joel Burkholder in 2014.2 As a result, in The Laws of Scientific Change Barseghyan left the question of the status of normative propositions open, by noting that further theoretical work coupled with historical evidence would be needed to settle the issue.1p. 60

The problem was that including methodologies in the scientific mosaic would result in violations of the third law of scientific change. At the time, the third law stated that "a method becomes employed only when it is deducible from other employed methods and accepted theories of the time". But if methodologies were to be considered theories, then, by the third law, employed methods would have to be deductive consequences of accepted methodologies. among other things. If employed methods were deducible from accepted methodologies, then how could there ever be any discrepancy between employed methods and accepted methodologies? This wouldn't make any sense from a logical perspective.

The theory of scientific change did not include normative propositions until a resolution to the paradox of normative propositions proposed by Zoe Sebastien was accepted by the scientonomic community in 2016. The modifications consequently accepted included changing the definition of theory from "a set of propositions that attempt to describe something" to "a set of propositions".3 This new definition of theory could include normative propositions and, as a result, methodologies.

Acceptance Record

Here is the complete acceptance record of this question (it includes all the instances when the question was accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by a community):

Community	Accepted From	Acceptance Indicators	Still Accepted	Accepted Until	Rejection Indicators
Scientonomy	1 January 2016	The question became de facto accepted by the community at that time together with the whole theory of scientific change.	Yes

All Theories

The following direct answers to the question have been suggested:

Theory	Formulation	Formulated In
Resolution to the Paradox of Normative Propositions (Sebastien-2016)	The new third law resolves the paradox of normative propositions by making it clear that employed methods don't necessarily follow from all accepted theories, but only from some.	2016

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Accepted Theories

The following theories have been accepted as direct answers to this question:

Community	Theory	Accepted From	Accepted Until
Scientonomy	Resolution to the Paradox of Normative Propositions (Sebastien-2016)	21 January 2017

Suggested Modifications

Here is a list of modifications concerning direct answers to this question:

Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Date Assessed	Verdict	Verdict Rationale
Sciento-2016-0001	Scientonomy	3 September 2016	Accept a new formulation of the third law to make it clear that employed methods do not have to be deducible from all accepted theories and employed methods but only from some.	21 January 2017	Accepted	There was a community consensus that "the new formulation of the third law does bring an additional level of precision to our understanding of the mechanism of method change".c1 The community agreed that the new formulation "makes a clarification that, on its own, warrants this modification's acceptance".c2 Importantly, it was also agreed that the modification "solves the paradox of normative propositions".c3

Current View

The paradox was resolved by Zoe Sebastien when she suggested a new formulation of the third law which made it clear that employed methods shouldn't follow from all accepted theories, but only from some.3

In Scientonomy, the accepted answer to the question is Resolution to the Paradox of Normative Propositions (Sebastien-2016).

Resolution to the Paradox of Normative Propositions (Sebastien-2016) states: "The new third law resolves the paradox of normative propositions by making it clear that employed methods don't necessarily follow from all accepted theories, but only from some."

The paradox of normative propositions arises from the following three premises:

1. there have been many historical cases where employed scientific methods conflicted with professed methodologies;
2. by the third law, employed methods are deducible from accepted theories, including methodologies;
3. two proposition cannot be mutually inconsistent if one logically follows from another.

Sebastien's solution rejects premise (2), by clarifying that an employed method shouldn't necessarily follow from all accepted theories, but only from some. In those cases, when an employed method is in conflict with an accepted methodology, it is an indication that the former doesn't follow from the latter. As for their mutual inconsistency, that is allowed by the zeroth law.

Related Topics

This question is a subquestion of Mechanism of Method Employment.