Difference between revisions of "Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance Use and Pursuit"

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|Authors List=Hakob Barseghyan,
 
|Authors List=Hakob Barseghyan,
 
|Formulated Year=2015
 
|Formulated Year=2015
|Prehistory=In the historical literature, many different words have been used to describe the attitudes a scientific community can take towards a theory, generally without any attempt to clarify their respective meanings. [[Larry Laudan]] and [[Stephen Wykstra]] were among the first who distinguished between the ''acceptance'' and the ''pursuit'' of a theory.[[CiteRef::Laudan (1977a)|pp. 108-114]] [[CiteRef::Wykstra (1980)|p. 216]] [[Hakob Barseghyan]] has argued that a similar distinction was implicit in the work of [[Imre Lakatos]], although Lakatos did not explicitly draw the distinction.[[CiteRef::Barseghyan (2015)|p. 33]]
 
 
|Related Topics=Scope of Scientonomy - Construction and Appraisal, Scope of Scientonomy - Descriptive and Normative, Scope of Scientonomy - Explicit and Implicit, Scope of Scientonomy - Individual and Social, Scope of Scientonomy - Time Fields and Scale,
 
|Related Topics=Scope of Scientonomy - Construction and Appraisal, Scope of Scientonomy - Descriptive and Normative, Scope of Scientonomy - Explicit and Implicit, Scope of Scientonomy - Individual and Social, Scope of Scientonomy - Time Fields and Scale,
 
|Page Status=Needs Editing
 
|Page Status=Needs Editing

Revision as of 13:30, 27 June 2017

How ought a scientonomic theory deal with the various stances that a community might take towards a theory? How ought it to classify those stances? Which stances towards a theory ought a scientonomic theory account for?

There has been a long tradition of confusing different stances that a community can take towards a theory. Kuhn, for instance, used a number of equally vague words, including universally received,embraced, acknowledged, and committed, to describe the status of theories within scientific communities.1pp. 10-13 Acceptance too has had a plethora of different meanings. Once the taxonomy of epistemic stances is clarified, it is important to identify stances for which changes ought to be traced and explained by scientonomy.

In the scientonomic context, this question was first formulated by Hakob Barseghyan in 2015. The question is currently accepted as a legitimate topic for discussion by Scientonomy community.

In Scientonomy, the accepted answer to the question is:

  • Scientonomy ought to address the issue of how transitions from one accepted theory to another take place and what logic governs this evolution, and need not deal in questions of theory pursuit or use.

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 January 2016That is when the community accepted its first answer to this question, the Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015), which indicates that the question is itself considered legitimate.Yes

All Theories

The following theories have attempted to answer this question:
TheoryFormulationFormulated In
Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015)Scientonomy ought to address the issue of how transitions from one accepted theory to another take place and what logic governs this evolution, and need not deal in questions of theory pursuit or use.2015

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Accepted Theories

The following theories have been accepted as answers to this question:
CommunityTheoryAccepted FromAccepted Until
ScientonomyScope of Scientonomy - Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015)1 January 2016

Suggested Modifications

According to our records, there have been no suggested modifications on this topic.

Current View

In Scientonomy, the accepted answer to the question is Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015).

Scope of Scientonomy - Acceptance (Barseghyan-2015) states: "Scientonomy ought to address the issue of how transitions from one accepted theory to another take place and what logic governs this evolution, and need not deal in questions of theory pursuit or use."

Scientonomy currently recognizes several different stances that an epistemic community might take towards a theory. The community might accept the theory as the best currently available description of the world, it might regard a theory as worthy of pursuit and further development, or it might regard the theory as adequate for use for some practical purpose, while not the best description of the world. 2pp. 30-42 These stances, and their opposites (i.e. that a theory is unaccepted, neglected, or unused)together constitute the range of stances that a community might take towards a theory. The concept of a scientific mosaic consisting of the set of all theories accepted, and all methods employed by the community 2pp.1-11 is central to scientonomy, as is the goal of explaining all changes in this mosaic. To fulfill this central goal, a scientonomic theory ought to explain how transitions from one accepted theory to another take place, and what logic governs that transition, but it doesn't necessarily need to explain why some theories are pursued and others neglected and why some are used and others remain unused. 2p. 42

Related Topics

This question is a subquestion of Scope of Scientonomy.

This topic is also related to the following topic(s):

References

  1. ^  Kuhn, Thomas. (1970) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: Second Edition, Enlarged. University of Chicago Press.
  2. a b c  Barseghyan, Hakob. (2015) The Laws of Scientific Change. Springer.