What is social level? How should it be defined?
Social level is one of the key concepts in current scientonomy. Thus, its proper definition is of great importance. When looking at the scientific change, one might wonder who determines this change. There are many evidences that suggest that a scientific community is the reason for the change in the science’ methods and theories.
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. Social Level (Barseghyan-2015) is currently accepted by Scientonomy community as the best available definition of the term. Social Level (Barseghyan-2015) states "The level of the scientific community and its mosaic of accepted theories and employed methods."
Many key figures have given different explanations concerning the social level’s implication in the scientific change. Charles Sanders Pierce uses his consensual theory of truth to argue that what is perceived as either real or the truth, is decided by an agreement between a scientific community. He later states that it is impossible for an individual scientist to attain the truth is they are working by themselves because this might bias their research.1 Similar to this point, Torsten Wilholt argues that individual’s experiments rely on other researches, and thus these individuals rely on someone else’s truthfulness and beliefs. This evidence can be considered to contribute to a scientific community, and thus prove the existence of the social level. 1. In Longino’s paper, she mentions Philip Kitcher’s External Standard model. According to her paper, Kitcher emphasized that scientific change develops throughout time, and in order for this development to occur, the knowledge is passed on from previous researchers. And thus, Kitcher concludes that the individual knowledge is based on a scientific community with a wider knowledge and source of information.1
There are many evidences of a social level in science, one of them being ethical values. In her 2016, Longino makes an interesting point about how ethical values are used to regulate an individual’s research. These ethical values are not only based on previous research experiences, but they also imply the existence of a higher community which implies them in the first place. She also mentions monism in her paper, which according to her is a degree of sociality assigned to epistemology of science. Monism assumes that science has a universal goal of unifying its theories and methods, and the community works towards completing this goal. This goal affects the assessment of theories and the employment of methods, because it sees the incompatible theories and methods as problematic for the fulfilment of this goal. 1.
The social level has an important role in the regulation of the individual scientists. Without a scientific community, the universal accepted scientific mosaic might fail to exist as scientists might accept and pursue different theories. H. Barseghyan defines the social level in his book as a key factor for the modification of the scientific mosaic accepted by the scientific community. 2. And thus, we can conclude that the social level is essential for the maintenance of stability throughout the science, and also a factor which has an effect on the scientific change.
|Community||Accepted From||Acceptance Indicators||Still Accepted||Accepted Until||Rejection Indicators|
|Scientonomy||1 January 2016||Yes|
|Social Level (Barseghyan-2015)||The level of the scientific community and its mosaic of accepted theories and employed methods.||2015|
|Community||Theory||Accepted From||Accepted Until|
|Scientonomy||Social Level (Barseghyan-2015)||1 January 2016|
In Scientonomy community, the accepted definition of the term is Social Level (Barseghyan-2015). It is defined as: "The level of the scientific community and its mosaic of accepted theories and employed methods."
This topic is a sub-topic of Scientific Mosaic.
This topic is also related to the following topic(s):
- Longino, Helen. (2016) The Social Dimensions of Scientific Knowledge. In Zalta (Ed.) (2016). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/scientific-knowledge-social/.
- Barseghyan, Hakob. (2015) The Laws of Scientific Change. Springer.