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D
According to Patton and Al-Zayadi, a discipline involves at least one [[Question|question]], while each question can be within the scope of any number of disciplines.[[CiteRef::Patton and Al-Zayadi (2021)]] +
No [[Theory|theory]] acceptance may take place in a genuinely dogmatic [[Scientific Community|community]]. "Namely," as is noted in [[Barseghyan (2015)]], Barseghyan notes, when introducing '''the theory rejection theorem''' in [[Barseghyan (2015)]], "theory change is impossible in cases where a currently accepted theory is considered as revealing the final and absolute truth".[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 165]] +
A '''substantive method''' is one that presupposes at least one contingent proposition; one that depends on the state of something in the external world. According to our understanding of contingent propositions, all such propositions are '''fallible'''. As such, any substantive method will necessarily presuppose at least one contingent proposition, and is therefore fallible. Thus, by the '''synchronism of method rejection''' theorem, the rejection of a theory can result in the rejection of a method, rendering all substantive methods dynamic. +
E
According to Oh, there is such a thing as element decay.[[CiteRef::Oh (2021)]] +
Element decay is not a scientonomic phenomenon and, thus, is outside of the scope of scientonomy. +
A method is said to be ''employed'' at time ''t'' if, at time ''t,'' theories became accepted only when their acceptance is permitted by the method. [[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 53]] ''The second law'' of theory acceptance is a direct consequence of ''employed method'' as it is defined. +
According to this definition of the term, ''employed method'' is nothing but the actual expectations of a certain community at a certain time. This is in tune with the actual scientonomic usage of the term. It is safe to say that this definition is tacitly used throughout Barseghyan's [[Barseghyan (2015)|''The Laws of Scientific Change'']]. For instance, when he says that the method of intuition schooled by experience was employed by the community of Aristotelian-Medieval natural philosophers, he actually means that this community expected new theories to be intuitively true.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 143-145]][[CiteRef::Patton, Overgaard, and Barseghyan (2017)|p. 35]] When he says that the double-blind trial method is currently employed in drug testing, he means that "the community expects new drugs to be tested in double-blind trials".[[CiteRef::Patton, Overgaard, and Barseghyan (2017)|p. 35]][[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 134-142]] Originally, this tacit definition of emp… +
[[Joshua Allen]] makes a case for this broad definition of the term. According to Allen:[[CiteRef::Allen (2023)|pp. 75-76]] +
According to Allen, epistemic actions are a key part of everyday epistemic practice. +
An ''epistemic agent'' acts in relation to [[Epistemic Element|epistemic elements]] such as theories, questions, and methods. The actions of an epistemic agent amount to taking [[Epistemic Stance|epistemic stances]] towards these elements, such as accepting or pursuing a theory, accepting a question, or employing a method. The stances of an epistemic agent must be ''intentional''. To be so, they must satisfy the following conditions: +
According to Barseghyan, epistemic agents are an essential part of the process of scientific change, as they take stances towards epistemic elements. +
This definition attempts to capture what is arguably the key feature of epistemic communities - their collective intentionality to study/know the world. This feature, according to the definition, distinguishes epistemic communities from [[Non-Epistemic Community|non-epistemic communities]], such as political, economic, or familial communities. To use [[Nicholas Overgaard|Overgaard]]'s own example, "it is clear that an orchestra is a community: the various musicians can be said to have a collective intentionality to play a piece of music" and yet its collective intentionality is different from that of knowing the world.[[CiteRef::Overgaard (2017)|p. 59]] +
According to [[Nicholas Overgaard|Overgaard]], communities that do not have a collective intentionality to know the world can still have sub-communities that do have such an intentionality. Overgaard illustrates this with the example of Google, a company that can be considered a [[Non-Epistemic Community|non-epistemic community]] as its collective intentionality is that to make profit. Yet, as an innovative company, Google has many sub-communities which do have a collective intentionality to know the world, such as "a research and development team trying to better know Internet technologies, or a marketing team trying to better know how to reach consumers".[[CiteRef::Overgaard (2017)|p. 59]] By [[Epistemic Community (Overgaard-2017)|definition]], these sub-communities are [[Epistemic Community|epistemic]]. Thus, argues Overgaard, it is possible for an epistemic community to be the sub-community of a non-epistemic community. +
The claim of the existence of epistemic communities can be traced back to Overgaard, who presented the distinction between epistemic and non-epistemic communities in his [[Overgaard (2017)|''A Taxonomy for the Social Agents of Scientific Change'']].[[CiteRef::Overgaard (2017)]] +
According to Barseghyan, epistemic community is an epistemic agent, i.e. it is capable of taking [[Epistemic Stance|epistemic stances]] towards [[Epistemic Element|epistemic elements]].[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2018)]] +
TODO: Nikki add a description +
According to Barseghyan and Levesley, questions can have epistemic presuppositions. +
Fraser and Sarwar argued that, as an epistemic stance, compatibility can be taken towards epistemic elements of all types.[[CiteRef::Fraser and Sarwar (2018)|p. 70]] +
The only stance that an epistemic agent can take towards a method is [[Employed Method|''employment'']], i.e. a method is either employed or unemployed by an agent in theory evaluation. +
In his [[Barseghyan (2018)|"Redrafting the Ontology of Scientific Change"]], Barseghyan argued that since [[Normative Theory|norms]] are a subtype of [[Theory|theory]], all the epistemic stances that can in principle be taken by an epistemic agent towards theories of all types can also be taken towards norms. In addition to these more universal stances, norms can also be [[Norm Employment|employed]], i.e. they have the capacity of constituting the actual expectations of the epistemic agent. This applies to norms of all types.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2018)]] +
