Changes

|Prehistory=In the early twentieth century, logical positivists formulated an ontology of scientific change. While they individually held varying views, we can summarize their ontology by generalizing from 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 empirical probability is determined by observational evidence its favour. The positivists supposed that there was a single scientific method that did not change through history or across disciplines so that the only epistemic elements capable of change in their ontology were theories. Furthermore, the logical positivists did not share the belief that theories could be outright rejected. Instead, they believed theories are simply pursued on a basis of instances of confirmation.[[CiteRef::Schlick (1931)|pp.145-162]]

[[Thomas Kuhn]] proposed numerous new elements in his model of [[Mechanism of Scientific Change|scientific change]]. Kuhn’s ''Structure of Scientific Revolutions'' [[CiteRef::Kuhn (1963)]] suggested a number of new ontological elements, including methods, values, questions, standards, and problems. He also speaks of paradigms as collections of theori