Existence of Question Acceptance

Does question acceptance exist?

In the scientonomic context, this question was first formulated by William Rawleigh in 2018. The question is currently accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by Scientonomy community. The following claim concerning the existence of Question Acceptance is currently accepted in Scientonomy:

• There is such a thing as question acceptance.
  

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	12 May 2018	Existence of Question Acceptance became accepted by virtue of the acceptance of Question Acceptance. This is when Rawleigh's The Status of Questions in the Ontology of Scientific Change that offered a definition of question acceptance was published. This is a good indication that the question of how the term is to be defined is considered legitimate by the community.	Yes

All Theories

The following answers have been added to this encyclopedia:

Theory	Formulation	Formulated In
Question Acceptance Exists	There is such a thing as question acceptance.	2018

To add the negative answer to the question, click here.

Accepted Theories

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

Community	Theory	Accepted From	Accepted Until
Scientonomy	Question Acceptance Exists	1 November 2018

Suggested Modifications

Here is a list of modifications concerning this topic:

Modification	Community	Date Suggested	Summary	Verdict	Verdict Rationale	Date Assessed
Sciento-2018-0003	Scientonomy	12 May 2018	Accept that the epistemic stance that can be taken by an epistemic agent towards a question is question acceptance (the opposite is unacceptance), where question acceptance is defined as "a question is said to be accepted if it is taken as a legitimate topic of inquiry".	Accepted	It was noted that "the whole point of adding questions to the ontology of epistemic elements was that we can legitimately speak of a question being accepted by a certain agent at a certain time".c1 The discussion also revealed a need to distinguish "a situation where no consensus exists from a situation where a consensus exists that a question is illegitimate".c2 In other words, "just as question acceptance, theory acceptance too seems to allow for three values: (clearly) accepted; (clearly) unaccepted; no consensus".c3 Thus, a new question was suggested concerning the binary character of epistemic stances: "are all epistemic stances binary, or do they allow for more than two values?"c4	1 November 2018

Current View

In Scientonomy, the following claim concerning the existence of Question Acceptance is currently accepted:

• There is such a thing as question acceptance.
  

Question Acceptance Exists states: "There is such a thing as question acceptance."

Rawleigh emphasized that the process of scientific change involves not only theories and methods but also questions.1