Necessary Epistemic Elements
Are there epistemic elements that are necessarily part of any mosaic? What epistemic elements, if any, are necessary for the process of scientific change to occur?
What epistemic elements, if any, are necessary for the process of scientific change to occur?
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:
- In order for the process of scientific change to be possible, the mosaic must necessarily contain at least one employed method.
Contents
Broader History
Although the scientonomic notion of necessary mosaic elements is unique to scientonomy, the notion of necessary knowledge has been covered extensively within the philosophy of science. In Descartes’ Meditations, he presents the famous cogito ergo sum argument as a justification for the a priori necessity of existential knowledge of some aspect of ‘the self’ irrespective of physical experience. He argues that, even if one doubts the existence and nature of the physical world, they still have knowledge of at least one objective truth in the world, namely, knowledge of their own intellectual existence. Likewise, Leibniz used his principle of sufficient reason to argue for the a priori necessity of the Uniformity of Nature, that is, that we know the universe behaves in similar ways under similar circumstances. He argued that if we accept his principle, we are lead to conclude that similar circumstances yield similar phenomena as there is a similar reason for the same phenomena to obtain. Kant also introduced his a priori forms, universal causation and substance-property dualism, as necessary components of our understanding of physical reality. The conception of necessary elements in scientific mosaics is analogous to these notions of a priori necessary metaphysical knowledge of the world.
Scientonomic History
Acceptance Record
| Community | Accepted From | Acceptance Indicators | Still Accepted | Accepted Until | Rejection Indicators |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scientonomy | 1 January 2016 | This is when the community accepted its first answer to the question, the Non-Empty Mosaic theorem, which indicates that the question is itself considered legitimate. | Yes |
All Theories
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Accepted Theories
Suggested Modifications
Current View
In Scientonomy, the accepted answer to the question is Necessary Method theorem (Barseghyan-2015).
Necessary Theories
Necessary Method theorem (Barseghyan-2015) states: "In order for the process of scientific change to be possible, the mosaic must necessarily contain at least one employed method."
According to the non-empty mosaic theorem, there must be at least one element present in a mosaic. By the second law, a theory can only be accepted into a mosaic if there is a method the community can use to appraise the theory. By the third law, methods become employed when they are deductive consequences of accepted theories. Thus, in any mosaic, there must exist at least one method with which a community can appraise new theories.1pp. 228-233
To better illustrate this example, we can imagine a community with a set of accepted propositions.
Community φ accepts proposition α. For α to have become accepted, through the second law, we know that φ must have had implicit expectations which α satisfied. No matter what those expectations are, if the community had not harbored those expectations there could be no acceptance.
Similarly, if we have a community φ which experiences a change of expectations (i.e. a change of method), it is deductively true that φ already had a set of expectations which could be referred to as a method.
Related Topics
It has the following sub-topic(s):
References
- ^ Barseghyan, Hakob. (2015) The Laws of Scientific Change. Springer.
