Epistemic Stances Towards Questions

What types of epistemic stances can be taken by epistemic agents towards questions?

What are the types of stances that an epistemic agent can take towards questions? For instance, can questions be accepted, used, pursued, employed, etc.?

In the scientonomic context, this question was first formulated by William Rawleigh in 2018. The question is currently accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by Scientonomy community.

In Scientonomy, the accepted answers to the question can be summarized as follows:

• The stance of question acceptance can be taken towards a question.
• The stance of compatibility can be taken towards an epistemic element.

Scientonomic History

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	26 September 2018	The acceptance of questions as a distinct element of the scientonomic ontology indicates that the question of epistemic stances that can be taken towards questions became accepted.	Yes

All Theories

The following theories have attempted to answer this question:

Theory	Formulation	Formulated In
Epistemic Stances Towards Questions - Question Acceptance (Rawleigh-2018)	The stance of question acceptance can be taken towards a question.	2018

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Accepted Theories

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

Community	Theory	Accepted From	Accepted Until
Scientonomy	Epistemic Stances Towards Questions - Question Acceptance (Rawleigh-2018)	1 November 2018

Suggested Modifications

Here is a list of modifications concerning this topic:

Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Verdict	Verdict Rationale	Date Assessed
Sciento-2018-0003	Scientonomy	12 May 2018	Accept that the epistemic stance that can be taken by an epistemic agent towards a question is question acceptance (the opposite is unacceptance), where question acceptance is defined as "a question is said to be accepted if it is taken as a legitimate topic of inquiry".	Accepted	It was noted that "the whole point of adding questions to the ontology of epistemic elements was that we can legitimately speak of a question being accepted by a certain agent at a certain time".c1 The discussion also revealed a need to distinguish "a situation where no consensus exists from a situation where a consensus exists that a question is illegitimate".c2 In other words, "just as question acceptance, theory acceptance too seems to allow for three values: (clearly) accepted; (clearly) unaccepted; no consensus".c3 Thus, a new question was suggested concerning the binary character of epistemic stances: "are all epistemic stances binary, or do they allow for more than two values?"c4	1 November 2018

Current View

In Scientonomy, the accepted answers to the question are Epistemic Stances Towards Questions - Question Acceptance (Rawleigh-2018) and Epistemic Stances Towards Epistemic Elements - Compatibility (Fraser-Sarwar-2018).

Epistemic Stances Towards Questions - Question Acceptance (Rawleigh-2018) states: "The stance of question acceptance can be taken towards a question."

Rawleigh argued that, just like theories, questions too can be accepted or unaccepted. A question can be accepted by an agent at one period at not accepted by another.

Epistemic Stances Towards Epistemic Elements

Epistemic Stances Towards Epistemic Elements - Compatibility (Fraser-Sarwar-2018) states: "The stance of compatibility can be taken towards an epistemic element."

Fraser and Sarwar argued that, as an epistemic stance, compatibility can be taken towards epistemic elements of all types.1p. 70

Related Topics

This question is a subquestion of Epistemic Stances Towards Epistemic Elements. It has the following sub-topic(s):

• Scientificity of Questions