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|Theory TypeAlternate Titles=|Title Formula=|Text Formula=Descriptive

|Formulation FileObject=Static-procedural-methods-theorem-box-only.jpg|Topic=Static vs. Dynamic Methods

|Formulation File=Static-procedural-methods-theorem-box-only.jpg|Description=A '''[[Procedural Method|procedural method''' ]] is a method which presupposes a doesn't presuppose any contingent propositions; it can only presuppose necessary truth about the worldtruths such as those of mathematics or logic. Given the nature of necessary truths, it is impossible for one such truth to contradict another necessary truth since it must be true in all possible worlds. Therefore, it follows from the '''Method Rejection''' theorem that, since there can be no elements at odds with a necessary truth, any procedural method is, in principle, static.{{PrintDiagramFile|diagram fileResource=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. Philosophers have not always agreed what this static [[Method#Prehistory|method]] should be, but almost all until the second half of the twentieth century believed that the scientific method should be an unchanging element in a scientific mosaic.[[CiteRef::Hoyningen-Huene (2008)]] [[Aristotle]] and his successors assumed a method by which axiomatic proof could guarantee absolute certainty about the world. [[Rudolf Carnap]] and the logical positivists attempted to axiomatize scientific theories, and therefore apply a universal method of logical deduction in their form of inductive verificationism. Contra the positivist approach, but still assuming a universal and static characteristic of method, Popper introduced a falsificationist method of science.[[CiteRef::Andersen and Hepburn (2015)]] This method rejected ever achieving absolute certainty in the truth of a theory, but Popper and contemporaries nonetheless assumed that this falsificationist method ought to have, and in fact had, applied to all scientific communities across time and space. The particular differences between each method are elaborated on the page on [[Method]], but it is due to the assumption that their own explicated procedure of theory acceptance applies to all scientific communities that these philosophers can be characterized as subscribing to a Static-procedural-methodsMethods theorem.jpg}}

This theorem explains why all procedural More recently, 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 static methods are necessarily static. By definition all procedural First, an empirical question: have there been any methods don’t presuppose contingent propositions but only necessary ones. Thuswhich have not changed through history? And second, from a conjunction oftheoretical question: 1. the Method Rejection Theorem (derived in turn from the First Law for Methods and the Zeroth Law or Law of Compatibility), 2. the premise that no procedural method can be incompatible with Are there any other methodswhich are, either procedural or substantivein principle, immune to change? Both Worrall and 3. the premise Laudan agreed that procedural there exist [[Substantive Method|substantive methods cannot be replaced ]] shaped by any other methodscontingent proposition and therefore not static. However, it follows Laudan held that all procedural no methods are necessarily static.Can a have ever been [[Procedural Method|procedural method be replaced ]] — shaped by another procedural method? No, because procedural methods only presuppose necessary truths propositions and by definition they cannot be incompatible with each othertherefore immune to change — whereas Worrall contents that certain methods, such as they hold in all possible worlds. Therefore, no procedural method can be incompatible with or replace another procedural the hypothetico-deductive method. Example: newly accepted mathematical theorem.Can a procedural method be replaced by a substantive method? No, because substantive methods, by definition, presuppose at least some contingent proposition while are in fact procedural methods only necessary ones, which are compatible with any truth, whether contingent or necessary, already accepted into and historically have formed the mosaic. Therefore, no substantive method can be incompatible with or replace any procedural method. Example: deductive inferencebase of scientific reasoning.|ResourceHistory=|Page Status=Needs Editing|Editor Notes=Barseghyan (2015)