Mutual Authority Delegation
What is mutual authority delegation? How should it be defined?
Mutual authority delegation is defined as the mutual acknowledgement between two separate communities A and B as experts of their own respective fields, and so accepts what each other has accepted within their own discipline.1 Identifying this relationship between two smaller scientific communities can allow the elucidation of overarching scientific communities and their mosaics. This interaction is by no means trivial, as it seems to explain the existence of and the coherence between sub-communities, and how different scientific communities have developed off each other’s work. An example of mutual authority delegation is the relationship between physicists and biologists. Physicists accept that biologists are the experts in the field of life sciences, and likewise, biologists accept that physicists are the experts in physical sciences.1 This ensures that there won’t be contradictory theories between their mosaics.
In the scientonomic context, this term was first used by Nicholas Overgaard and Mirka Loiselle in 2016. The term is currently accepted by Scientonomy community.
In Scientonomy, the accepted definition of the term is:
- Epistemic agents A and B are said to be in a relationship of mutual authority delegation iff A delegates authority over question x to B, and B delegates authority over question y to A.
Contents
Broader History
Émile Durkheim, in his The Division of Labour in Society (1893), introduced the concepts of mechanical and organic solidarity in a society. On one hand, mechanical solidarity describes a society where all members function in an identical manner. On the contrary, organic solidarity describes a society where specialized sub-communities have been formed to maximize social harmony and work together towards a common goal2. Authority delegation is much like the latter, where specialized communities have a mutualistic relationship. Another example can be found in cognitive science. Specialized parts within a system working together to achieve a specific output in a cognitive theory called distributed cognition. Similar concepts can be found in many other disciplines.
Scientonomic History
Mutual authority delegation was officially accepted by the scientonomic community in September 2016, after reviewing the article published in Scientonomy by Nicholas Overgaard and Mirka Loiselle, titled Authority Delegation (2016).
Acceptance Record
Community | Accepted From | Acceptance Indicators | Still Accepted | Accepted Until | Rejection Indicators |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Scientonomy | 7 September 2016 | The publication of the article by Overgaard and Loiselle titled Authority Delegation is a good indication of acceptance of the question.Overgaard and Loiselle (2016) | Yes |
All Theories
Theory | Formulation | Formulated In |
---|---|---|
Mutual Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016) | Communities A and B are said to be in a relationship of mutual authority delegation iff community A delegates authority over topic x to community B, and community B delegates authority over topic y to community A. | 2016 |
Mutual Authority Delegation (Patton-2019) | Epistemic agents A and B are said to be in a relationship of mutual authority delegation iff A delegates authority over question x to B, and B delegates authority over question y to A. | 2019 |
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Accepted Theories
Community | Theory | Accepted From | Accepted Until |
---|---|---|---|
Scientonomy | Mutual Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016) | 2 February 2018 | 6 February 2023 |
Scientonomy | Mutual Authority Delegation (Patton-2019) | 6 February 2023 |
Suggested Modifications
Modification | Community | Date Suggested | Summary | Date Assessed | Verdict | Verdict Rationale |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sciento-2016-0004 | Scientonomy | 7 September 2016 | Provided that the notion of authority delegation is accepted, accept the notions of mutual authority delegation and one-sided authority delegation as subtypes of authority delegation. | 2 February 2018 | Accepted | Following a period of discussion, it was finally agreed that "the current definitions of authority delegation, mutual authority delegation, and one-sided authority delegation, despite their problems, are currently the best available such definitions".c1 It was noted that these definitions don't take into the account the possibility of conditional authority delegation, where community A is prepared to accept the findings of another community on a certain topic only if these findings also satisfy some additional criteria imposed by community A. It was argued that there might be cases where a community's reliance on the findings of another community might be "conditional in ways that the current authority delegation definition is too restrictive to encompass".c2 The idea of conditional delegation was found pursuit-worhty.c3 It was also stressed that these definitions are only the first step towards a deeper understanding of the mechanism of authority delegation. Scientonomists were advised to pursue the idea of deducing "theorems concerning theory acceptance and method employment in delegating mosaics".c4 |
Sciento-2019-0017 | Scientonomy | 26 December 2019 | Accept the definitions of authority delegation, and its subtypes, that generalize the currently accepted definitions to apply to all epistemic agents, rather than only communities. | 6 February 2023 | Accepted | The commentators found the modification uncontroversial.c1 c2 It was noted that the modification "merely attempts to capture what is already de facto accepted - namely, the idea that authority can be delegated by and to epistemic agents of all kinds (both communal and individual)" as indicated by the "fact that the canonical examples of authority delegation often involve individual experts (see, for example, Loiselle 2017)".c3 It was agreed that the modification "introduces a necessary rewording in the definitions of authority delegation and its species".c4 |
Current View
In Scientonomy, the accepted definition of the term is Mutual Authority Delegation (Patton-2019).
Mutual Authority Delegation (Patton-2019) states: "Epistemic agents A and B are said to be in a relationship of mutual authority delegation iff A delegates authority over question x to B, and B delegates authority over question y to A."
The definition tweaks the original definition of the term by Overgaard and Loiselle to ensure that the relationship of multiple authority delegation can obtain between epistemic agents of all types. It also substitutes question for topic, as the former is the proper scientonomic term that should be used.
Overgaard and Loiselle illustrate the relationship of mutual authority delegation by a number of examples. For one, physicists acknowledge that biologists are the experts on questions concerning life, and likewise biologists acknowledge that physicists are the experts on questions concerning physical processes. Similar relationships can be found within individual scientific disciplines. Consider, for instance, the relationship between theoretical and applied physicists, where despite the differences in their methods and overall objectives, the two communities customarily delegate authority to each other on a wide array of topics.
Related Topics
This question is a subquestion of Authority Delegation.
References
- a b Overgaard, Nicholas and Loiselle, Mirka. (2016) Authority Delegation. Scientonomy 1, 11-18. Retrieved from https://www.scientojournal.com/index.php/scientonomy/article/view/27065.
- ^ Carls, Paul. (2016) Émile Durkheim. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/durkheim/.