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Dynamic Substantive Methods theorem (Barseghyan-2015) (view source)
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Another example is the transition from the Aristotelian-Medieval Method to the Hypothetico-Deductive Method. While in the former it was assumed that there was an essential difference between natural and artificial, and that therefore the results of experiments, being artificial, were not to be trusted when trying to grasp the essence of things, in both the Cartesian and Newtonian worldviews such a distinction was not assumed and therefore experiments could be as reliable as observations when trying to understand the world. Once the theories changed (from the natural/artifical distinction to no such distinction) the methods changed too (from no-experiments to the experimental method).
|Resource=Barseghyan (2015)
|Prehistory=Philosophers of science up until [[Karl Popper]] and [[Imre Lakatos]] typically believed that there was at least one element of the scientific mosaic immune to change. For most, this static element was believed to be a transhistorical scientific method. [[Thomas Kuhn]] and [[Paul Feyerabend]] were among the first in the philosophical canon to introduce the idea that methods of science are dynamic, change through time, and that no logical core necessarily persists across major spans of time. Kuhn took a strongly historicist view of science, and insisted that the examination of the history of science shows that the method of theory acceptance can radically change for a community across a paradigm shift.[[CiteRef::Andersen and Hepburn (2015)]]
By the 1980s, most philosophers of science had accepted that many of the [[Mechanism of Theory Acceptance|requirements for theory acceptance]] are dynamic. The example of the placebo effect was used as an example of how theories induce [[Mechanism of Method Employment|change to the requirements of the scientific method]] of a community. However, philosophers still hoped that there was a more abstract and fundamental set of static requirements consistent across scientific communities. For adherents to this belief, such as [[John Worrall]], this was typically argued to be a kind of hypothetico-deductivism.
The debate between Laudan and Worrall[[CiteRef::Laudan (1984a)]][[CiteRef::Worrall (1988)]][[CiteRef::Laudan (1989a)]][[CiteRef::Worrall (1989)]] elucidated the distinction between two questions about dynamic methods. The first was an empirical question: Have there been any methods which have not changed through history? And second, a theoretical question: Are there any methods which are, in principle, immune to change? Both Worrall and Laudan agreed that there exist [[Substantive Method|substantive methods]], which shaped by contingent propositions about the world and therefore not static. If theories about the world are to change, then so should these methods. However, Laudan held that no methods have ever been [[Procedural Method|procedural]] — shaped by only necessary propositions and therefore immune to change — whereas Worrall contented that certain methods, such as the hypothetico-deductive method, are in fact procedural and historically have formed the base of scientific reasoning.
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