A Theory of Scientific Study

Luk, Robert W. P.

doi:10.1007/s10699-015-9435-x

Cited by 11 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…To accomplish this aim, scientific study is constrained by a set of principles and assumptions, which are derived from certain part of the aim of scientific study, so that they encourage scientific study to achieve the aim. Apart from these principles and assumptions, the attempt also delineates the knowledge structure of science by a model (Luk, 2017) so that different scientific disciplines share the same knowledge structure, thereby supporting the claim that there is such a thing as science, which is regarded as an academic discipline (or an academic subject).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 64%

Why is Information Retrieval a Scientific Discipline?

Luk

2020

Found Sci

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It is relatively easy to state that information retrieval (IR) is a scientific discipline but it is rather difficult to understand why it is science because what is science is still under debate in the philosophy of science. To be able to convince others that IR is science, our ability to explain why is crucial. To explain why IR is a scientific discipline, we use a theory and a model of scientific study, which were proposed recently. The explanation involves mapping the knowledge structure of IR to that of well-known scientific disciplines like Physics. In addition, the explanation involves identifying the common aim, principles and assumptions in IR and in well-known scientific disciplines like Physics, so that they constrain the scientific investigation in IR in a similar way as in Physics. Therefore, there are strong similarities in terms of the knowledge structure and the constraints of the scientific investigations between IR and scientific disciplines like Physics. Based on such similarities, IR is considered a scientific discipline.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 64%

Why is Information Retrieval a Scientific Discipline?

Luk

2020

Found Sci

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“…What is the motivation to combine principle theories and constructive theories into one type? We have mentioned that our first motivation is to ensure the generality of the theory and model of scientific study by Luk (2010;2017) to include constructive theories. Our second motivation is that eventually, it may be that all theories are principle theories (without the default principle) in science even though there is no guarantee to such an outcome.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Instead of using the distinct term, constructive theory, we consider that the default-principle theory as a special type of principle theory so that we encourage scientists to discover laws or principles later to make the defaultprinciple theory into a theory with concrete principles, because such laws and principles are highly valued by scientists as they can be applied across many different situations and therefore are important properties to know. By subsuming the constructive theory under principle theory, we have rescued the theory and model of scientific study by Luk (2010Luk ( , 2017 from incompleteness.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Einstein made a distinction (Flores, 1999) between principle theories (Lange, 2014) like Newtonian mechanics and constructive theories like kinetic theory of gases. If these two types of theories are fundamentally different, then the theory and model of scientific study by Luk (2010;2017) are incomplete because they only recognize principle theories although it is mentioned that a theory may contain models in (Luk, 2018). If they are fundamentally different, then why should scientific knowledge be organized into these different types of theories?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Principle Theory or Constructive Theory?

Luk

2022

SSRN Journal

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“…The scientific discipline and the social/cultural institute conjointly impose a conceptual system on scientific constructions. Luk proposed a theory of scientific study (including a contextual interaction model), which interprets it as a social learning process including activities such as scientific knowledge creation, revision, application, confirmation, and dissemination with the aim of safeguarding quality, completeness, and general relevance of knowledge (Luk, 2017).…”

Section: Beta-knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

The epsilon-knowledge: an emerging complement of Machlup's types of disciplinary knowledge

Horváth

2022

AIEDAM

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Machlup used the words alpha, beta, and gamma to identify humanities, science, and social science as three distinct fields of academic learning and knowing, in addition to general knowledge. Gilles and Paquet identified a fourth type of disciplinary knowledge and labeled it as delta. This includes the knowledge of creative disciplines such as design, law, and economy. Since the time of these road-paving works, a lot has changed. In the last two decades, various concepts and manifestations of intellectualized engineered systems have appeared. A paradigmatic feature of these systems, exemplified by smart cyber-physical systems, is that they collect, infer, or extract massive amount of synthetic system knowledge (M-SSK) based on some pre-programmed human knowledge. The amount of this type of knowledge grows continuously. It can be aggregated on system level and on system of systems level. This paper argues that this aggregated M-SSK is not covered by the abovementioned four genres of knowledge. In fact, it represents a new genre. The conducted literature study underpins this claim. Therefore, the paper suggests dealing with it as a new genre, called epsilon-knowledge. Artificial intelligence, system engineering, cyber-physical systems, and knowledge engineering are the disciplines dealing with epsilon-knowledge. The paper refers to sympérasmology as the proper conceptual framework of studying this genre of knowledge.

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A Theory of Scientific Study

Cited by 11 publications

References 27 publications

Why is Information Retrieval a Scientific Discipline?

Why is Information Retrieval a Scientific Discipline?

Principle Theory or Constructive Theory?

The epsilon-knowledge: an emerging complement of Machlup's types of disciplinary knowledge

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