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Scope of Scientonomy - Descriptive and Normative (view source)
Revision as of 15:29, 23 March 2017
, 15:29, 23 March 2017no edit summary
|Question=Ought a scientonomic theory be ''descriptive'' or ''normative''?
|Topic Type=Normative
|Description=There are at least three different sorts of questions concerning the process of scientific change; historical questions, theoretical questions, and methodological questions. Historical questions deal with matters such as what theories were accepted and what methods were employed at a particular time. Theoretical questions such questions as the mechanisms of theory and method change. They both deal in descriptive questions. Methodological questions deal with normative matters such as what methods ought to be employed and what theories ought to be accepted. The question at issue is which of these sorts of questions ought to fall within the scope of scientonomy, and which should not. Should a scientonomic theory merely explain how science changes through time, or should it prescribe how science ought to change, or both?
|Parent Topic=Scope of Scientonomy
|Authors List=Hakob Barseghyan,
|Formulated Year=2015
|Prehistory=One of the reasons why the classic philosophy of science failed to accomplish its task was the vagueness of its position regarding this question. The theories of Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, and early Laudan can all be considered either as descriptions of how science changes through time and/or prescriptions of how it ought to change.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 12-21]]
