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|Prehistory=In the early twentieth century, many [[Rudolf Carnap|logical positivists]] supported a confirmationist view of theory assessment, in which theories are assessed on the basis of the balance of confirming and disconfirming evidence. In 1945, [[Carl Hempel]], a logical empiricist and confirmationist, argued that, on such grounds, an agent might take one of three stances towards a theory, ''accepting'' it, ''rejecting'' it, or ''withholding judgment''. [[CiteRef::Losee (2001)|p. 167-168]][[CiteRef::Hempel (1945)]]
In his ''Logic of Scientific Discovery'' (1959), [[CiteRef::Popper (1959)]] [[Karl Popper]] argued for a falsificationist scientific methodology, but a relatively similar set of possible stances towards theories. Scientific ideas gained ''acceptance'' when they had survived strong tests in which their unexpected novel predictions were verified, and where ''rejected'' when they failed to survive such tests. [[CiteRef::Thornton (20152016)]][[CiteRef::Godfrey-Smith (2003)|p. 57-74]]
[[Thomas Kuhn]]'s ''Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' (1963) used a number of equally vague terms to refer to stances a community might take towards a theory, including ''universally received'', ''embraced'', ''acknowledged'', and ''committed to''. [[CiteRef::Kuhn (1962)|pp. 10-13]]
