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How do questions become accepted as legitimate topics of inquiry? What is the mechanism of question acceptance?

Various theorists have recognized that the kinds of questions that can be asked by scientists changes over time. Kuhn, van Fraassen, and Lauden have all noted this fact to varying degrees without proposing a concrete mechanism by which questions come to be accepted as legitimate at any given time. Kuhn, for example, recognized that the kinds of questions that can be asked by scientists changes with each paradigm shift, but declined to propose a specific mechanism for this phenomena (i.e. what makes a question acceptable in one paradigm but not in another).

The ontology of epistemic elements of scientific change put forward by William Rawleigh includes questions as one of the subtypes of epistemic elements, alongside theories and methods. This, along with the fact that Rawleigh proposes acceptance and unacceptance as the possible stances of epistemic communities suggests that there ought to be mechanism by which questions are introduced into a mosaic as legitimate topics of inquiry.

There already exists an accepted mechanism for theories and an accepted mechanism for methods to explain how those elements become part of a mosaic. Given that a mechanism for theories and methods exists, it is very likely that a mechanism for questions also exists.

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.

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):
CommunityAccepted FromAcceptance IndicatorsStill AcceptedAccepted UntilRejection Indicators
Scientonomy1 November 2018The question became accepted accepted as a legitimate topic of scientonomic inquiry as a result of the acceptance of the respective suggested modification.Yes

All Theories

The following theories have attempted to answer this question:
TheoryFormulationFormulated In
The Law of Question Acceptance (Barseghyan-Levesley-2021)A question becomes accepted only if all of its epistemic presuppositions are accepted and it is accepted that the question is answerable.2021

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Accepted Theories

According to our records, no theory on this topic has ever been accepted.

Suggested Modifications

Here is a list of modifications concerning this topic:
Modification Community Date Suggested Summary Verdict Verdict Rationale Date Assessed
Sciento-2021-0002 Scientonomy 1 August 2021 Accept the law of question acceptance as a new scientonomic axiom, the question rejection theorem, and a number of questions for future research. Open

Current View

There is currently no accepted answer to this question.


Related Topics

This question is a subquestion of Mechanism of Scientific Change. It has the following sub-topic(s):