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|Authors List=Hakob Barseghyan,
|Formulated Year=2015
|Prehistory=Previous thinkers on the subject, including Laudan, Popper, and Lakatos, considered theory assessment to be the purpose of methodology.[[CiteRef::Laudan (19871987b)]][[CiteRef::Lakatos (1971a)]][[CiteRef::Nola and Sankey (2007)]] A proposed methodology could be used to determine the set of conditions or standards to be met for theory assessment. In turn, this raises the question, by which criteria can one assess a specified methodology? To solve this problem, philosophers proposed metamethodologies. For example, Laudan’s proposed normative naturalism assesses methodology by testing it against the historical record.[[CiteRef::Laudan (19871987b)]] Alternatively, employing the hypothetico-deductive method for testing a methodological thesis can be considered a metamethodology.[[CiteRef::Nola and Sankey (2007)]] However, each of these approaches begs the question as to how we assess or accept one methamethodology over another. In order to avoid the inevitable infinite regress that results from this process, Lakatos proposed a self-referential approach, whereby a methodology is to be assessed by its own standards.[[CiteRef::Lakatos (1971a)]] Although this closes the loop, Lakatos’ metamethodology risks introducing circularity into one’s reasoning.
Assessment of a theory of scientific change offers some additional challenges to those outlined above. One issue is that, to previous philosophers concerned with theory assessment, determining the mechanism for scientific change is essentially the same as explicating the method of science. One implication is the conflating of the descriptive and normative questions of assessment. In the ensuing confusion, methodology and TSC become indistinguishable.
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