Necessary Normative Theories

Are there normative theories that are necessarily part of any mosaic? What normative theories, if any, are necessary for the process of scientific change to occur?

The process of scientific change may necessitate the presence of certain normative theories. It is important to find out if there are such necessary normative theories and, if so, what theories these are.

In the scientonomic context, this question was first formulated in 2017. 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.

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	15 February 2017	The question was missing and was added by the editors of the encyclopedia in early 2023. However, it is safe to say that it has been de facto accepted since the acceptance of Sebastien's ontology in 2017.	Yes

All Theories

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Accepted Theories

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Suggested Modifications

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Current View

In Scientonomy, the accepted answer to the question is Necessary Method theorem (Barseghyan-2015).

Necessary Methods

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

This question is a subquestion of Necessary Theories. It has the following sub-topic(s):

• Necessary Methods