Discipline

What is discipline? How should it be defined?

Nicholas Overgaard explains the topic

Most epistemic agents classify knowledge into disciplines; e.g. disciplines are a ubiquitous feature of modern science. Thus, having a definition of discipline is an important first step in understanding the role of disciplines in the process of scientific change.

In the scientonomic context, this term was first used by Hakob Barseghyan in 2016. The term is currently accepted by Scientonomy community.

In Scientonomy, the accepted definition of the term is:

• A discipline is characterized by (1) a non-empty set of core questions Q and (2) the delineating theory stating that Q are the core questions of the discipline.

Scientonomic History

Acceptance Record

Here is the complete acceptance record of this question (it includes all the instances when the question was accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by a community):

Community	Accepted From	Acceptance Indicators	Still Accepted	Accepted Until	Rejection Indicators
Scientonomy	1 April 2016	It was acknowledged as an open question by the Scientonomy Seminar 2016.	Yes

All Theories

The following theories have attempted to answer this question:

Theory	Formulation	Formulated In
Discipline (Patton-Al-Zayadi-2021)	A discipline is characterized by (1) a non-empty set of core questions Q and (2) the delineating theory stating that Q are the core questions of the discipline.	2021

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Accepted Theories

The following theories have been accepted as answers to this question:

Community	Theory	Accepted From	Accepted Until
Scientonomy	Discipline (Patton-Al-Zayadi-2021)	21 February 2024

Suggested Modifications

Here is a list of modifications concerning this topic:

Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Verdict	Verdict Rationale	Date Assessed
Sciento-2021-0006	Scientonomy	1 August 2021	Accept new definitions of subquestion, core question, core theory, discipline, delineating theory, subdiscipline, and discipline acceptance.	Accepted	Prior to the 2024 workshop, Hakob Barseghyan commented on the encyclopedia indicating his support for accepting this modification and noted its potential to underpin further work on discipline dynamics. In fact, a significant amount of observational scientonomy work has been carried out in the past few years (including the paper on the rejection of alchemy by Friesen and Patton (2023),1 as well as some more recent papers) that presupposes the acceptance of these definitions, despite the fact that the modification containing them formally remains open. There was very little discussion about the modification, beyond raising points for the community to look forward to in the future, like a brief discussion between Jamie Shaw and Paul Patton about the need for more research on the difference between disciplines and disciplinary communities. The modification was accepted unanimously with 18 votes.	21 February 2024

Current View

In Scientonomy, the accepted definition of the term is Discipline (Patton-Al-Zayadi-2021).

Discipline (Patton-Al-Zayadi-2021) states: "A discipline is characterized by (1) a non-empty set of core questions Q and (2) the delineating theory stating that Q are the core questions of the discipline."

According to this definition, a discipline is characterized by a non-empty set of core questions and a delineating theory identifying these questions as the core questions of the discipline.2 Questions form hierarchies, with more specific questions being subquestions of more general questions. Theories find a place in these hierarchies, since each theory is an attempt to answer a certain question, and each question presupposes certain theories. Because of such hierarchical relations, it is possible to characterize a discipline by identifying a set of core questions. These core questions are judged by some agent to be related to one another, essential to a discipline, and definitive of its boundaries. This is stated in a discipline's delineating theory - a second-order theory that identifies the core questions of the discipline. The other questions of a discipline are the accepted subquestions of its core questions.

Related Topics

This topic is also related to the following topic(s):

• Question
• Theory
• Method