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|Description=[[Epistemic Agents|Epistemic agents]] (e.g. individual scientists, [[Epistemic Community|scientific communities]]) can take different epistemic stances (e.g. ''acceptance'', ''use'', ''pursuit'', ''employment'') towards different [[Epistemic Elements|epistemic elements]] (e.g. ''theories'', ''methods''). In principle, the types of stances that can be taken towards a [[Theory|theory]] may or may not be the same as the types of stances that can be taken towards [[Method|methods]] of [[Theory Assessment Outcomes|theory assessment]]. Thus, it must be clarified which types of stances can be taken towards epistemic elements of any given type.
The epistemic stance that an epistemic agent can take towards methods of theory assessment is limited to employment. So, a method can only be either employed or not employed by an epistemic agent[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 31]].
On the contrary, there are three epistemic stances that an epistemic agent can take towards a theory, namely, use, acceptance and pursuit. Now, taking a stance on a particular theory does not preclude the epistemic agent from simultaneously taking any of the other stances on that theory. For example, in the 19th century, the Newtonian Physics was both accepted and used by the scientific community. Therefore, it is the case that a theory might be used even if it is the theory not accepted by the scientific community. For example, after the acceptance of General Relativity (1916), Newtonian Physics was no longer the accepted theory but it is still used[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 31-35]].
|Parent Topic=Ontology of Scientific Change
|Authors List=Hakob Barseghyan,
