Changes

|Prehistory=At In the level of ontologyearly twentieth century, the philosophy of science begins noteworthy progress with the logical positivistsformulated an ontology of scientific change. While the positivists they individually had held varying views, we can summarize their ontology by generalizing from any existing the overlap between authors. The logical positivist ontology consisted of a [[Scientific Community|scientific community ]] which stipulated [[Theory|theories ]] and determined whether those theories were worthy of pursuit based on their empirical probability. A theory’s given empirical probability is determined by observational evidence in favour of it. The positivists did not recognize a multitude of that methods and could vary over time or between disciplines so the only epistemic elements in their ontology were theories (it should be noted that given the singular nature of methods it was assumed that all science would adhere to one perfect a single transhistorical method). Furthermore, the logical positivists did not share the belief that theories can could be outright rejected. Instead, they believed theories are simply pursued on a basis of instances of confirmation.[[CiteRef::Schlick (1931)|pp.145-162]]

Proceeding Following on the logical positivists, Karl Popper proposed his ontology of scientific change in his book ''Conjectures and Refutations''. This ontology included the same entities and agents as the logical positivists. However, Popper introduced the notion of [[Theory Acceptance|acceptance ]] as an epistemic stance by suggesting the rejection of theories which faced any refutation.[[CiteRef::Popper (1963)|pp. 62-63]] The contrast of terms suggested scientists could do more than simply pursue theories.