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{{Theory

|Theory Type=Definition

|Formulation Text=Community A is said to be delegating authority over topic ''x'' to community B ''iff'' (1) community A accepts that community B is an expert on topic ''x'' and (2) community A will accept a theory on topic ''x'' if community B says so.

|Formulation File=Authority Delegation (Overgaard-Loiselle-2016).png

|Description=If we consider the fact that scientific research is so specialized that no single research lab can account for all accepted theories in their discipline, we quickly recognize that there exists some form of distribution of labour among subcommunities. Authority delegation is an attempt to capture that distribution of labour, in scientonomic terms.

What this definition of authority delegation jointly expresses is the acceptance of a theory and the associated employment of a method. In any instance of authority delegation, the delegating community accepts that the community delegated to is an expert in some field. It follows from accepting that expertise that the same delegating community will simply employ a method to accept whatever the expert community says to accept.

Returning to a historical perspective, it is interesting to note the recent suggestion of a conceptual resonance between the current notion of distributed cognition and early twentieth century functional psychology and pragmatic philosophy.[[CiteRef::Osbeck and Nersessian (2014)]] In contrast to experimental psychology, and consonant with recent dynamic systems approaches, functional psychology attended to adaptive cognitive processes of the organism situated in its environment. Similarly, the focus within D-cog on defining the boundaries of the system resonate with the important role of perspective within pragmatism. Moreover, the functionalist emphasis on the interactional nature of meaning resonates with the pragmatist focus on the importance of value in problem solving.

|Page Status=Needs Editing

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{{Acceptance Record

|Accepted From Approximate=No

|Acceptance Indicators=The definition became accepted as a result of the acceptance of the respective [[Modification:Sciento-2016-0003|suggested modification]].

|Accepted Until Approximate=No

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