Modification:Sciento-2018-0003

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".

The modification was suggested to Scientonomy community by William Rawleigh on 12 May 2018.1 This modification presupposes the acceptance of Sciento-2018-0002. The modification was accepted on 1 November 2018.

Preamble

Once we accept that questions as a distinct epistemic element of the scientonomic ontology, we need to indicate what types of stance an epistemic agent can take towards questions. This modification suggests that a question can be accepted or unaccepted by epistemic agents as a legitimate topic of inquiry and provides a definition of question acceptance.

Modification

Theories To Accept

• Question Acceptance (Rawleigh-2018): A question is said to be accepted if it is taken as a legitimate topic of inquiry.

• Question Acceptance Is a Subtype of Epistemic Stance (Rawleigh-2018): Question Acceptance is a subtype of Epistemic Stance, i.e. epistemic stance is a supertype of question acceptance.
• Question Acceptance Exists: There is such a thing as question acceptance.
• Epistemic Stances Towards Questions - Question Acceptance (Rawleigh-2018): The stance of question acceptance can be taken towards a question.

Questions Answered

This modification attempts to answer the following question(s):

• Question Acceptance: What does it mean to say that a question is accepted? How should question acceptance be defined?
• Epistemic Stances Towards Questions: What types of epistemic stances can be taken by epistemic agents towards questions?
• Subtypes of Epistemic Stance: What are the subtypes of an epistemic stance?
• Supertypes of Question Acceptance: What are the supertypes of question acceptance?
• Existence of Question Acceptance: Does question acceptance exist?

Verdict

The modification was accepted on 1 November 2018. 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

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