Changes

====Theoretical scientonomy====

Though highly relevant to the traditional field of philosophy of science, theoretical scientonomy differs from it in that, as a descriptive scientific field, it does not include the normative question of how science should be conducted so as to produce reliable knowledge. In the past, when a unitary and fixed scientific method was believed to exist, the descriptive question of how scientific change processes actually work was often conflated with the normative question of how they should work if reliable knowledge is to be produced. Scientonomy seeks a clear distinction between the two, and claims only the former as its subject matter.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 12-20]] This restriction is motivated by the same concerns as Bloor's symmetry postulate in the sociology of scientific knowledge.[[CiteRef::Golinski (1998)]] Scientonomy's descriptive account, however, does include the descriptive study of normative propositions espoused by scientific practitioners such as those contained in their avowed methodologies, and codes of ethics.[[CiteRef::Sebastien (2016)]] Theoretical scientonomy concerns itself specifically with the identification of [[The Theory of Scientific Change|general principles of scientific change]] useful to a descriptive account of that process. The search for fixed general laws obviates the charge of incoherent relativism sometimes leveled at the sociology of scientific knowledge.[[CiteRef::Siegel (2011)]] By seeking such laws, it hopes to illuminate questions such as the nature of scientific rationality, and the naturalistic epistemological question of how knowledge has been acquired.

===Scientonomy vs. Particularism===

====Scientonomy and the lack of a universal scientific method====

The approach of scientonomy contrasts with that of the particularism favored by some historians, social scientists, and philosophers. Particularism holds that the process of scientific change does not possess the sort of regularities that would render it amenable to any general theory. Its proponents typically make the tacit assumption that in order for a general mechanism of scientific change to exist, there must be a universal and unchanging method of science.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. xi-xvi, 81-97]] Historical evidence now clearly indicates that the methods used by scientists to assess new theories have altered radically over time and between communities. For example, the Aristotelian-medieval method held that a scientific theory should be a set of axioms from which other propositions may be deduced. The axioms should be intuitive in the sense that any person with sufficient experience with the subject should be able to appreciate them.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 143-144]] Modern physicists would instead maintain that a theory must make novel predictions that are confirmed by observation and experiment.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 145]] Scientonomy accepts the evidence that scientific methods have changed over time and differ between communities, but rejects the implication that this renders a theory of scientific change impossible. Instead, it supposes that changes in both theory and method obey a certain set of laws. It is these laws and not the methods of science, that scientonomy takes to be fixed.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 82-83]][[CiteRef::Laudan (1984a)|pp. 33-41]]

Individual scientists differ one from another in their goals, desires, and criteria for theory appraisal. This too might seem to be grounds for rejecting the possibility of a general theory of scientific change. But the decisions to accept new theories, or to employ new methods, are made collectively by scientific communities rather than by individuals acting alone. Such communities have emergent properties and behaviors that cannot be understood solely in terms of the properties which their members possess separately. Scientonomy supposes that the general regularities it seeks are to be found at the level of whole scientific communities, rather than with the unruly particulars of the work of individual scientists. It thus focuses its investigations at that level.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|pp. 43-52]]