Decision Epistemology
A research programme on the epistemic integrity of decision systems over time.
Studying when continued reliance on prior decisions remains warranted as conditions change.
What this programme studies.
Decision Epistemology is concerned with the epistemic integrity of decision systems over time.
Its primary current focus is the maintenance, reassessment and authoritative institutional status of the justificatory basis for continued reliance on long-lived decisions.
A decision may have been justified when it was made without thereby remaining justified now.
Decision Epistemology is not presented as a replacement for decision theory, Human Factors, Situation Awareness, safety science, assurance, organisational sensemaking, resilience, governance or related established fields.
The programme assumes that neighbouring disciplines already explain many component functions.
The scientific burden is therefore on Decision Epistemology to demonstrate residual value.
Decisions persist.
Conditions change.
Evidence, then judgment, then decision.
Changed conditions, an unresolved question, continued action.
What still warrants continuation?
A deeper understanding of decision continuation.
The programme examines how continued reliance on a prior decision should be understood when evidence, assumptions, ownership, authority or operating conditions change.
Its concern is not simply whether a decision persists operationally.
The harder question is whether the basis that continues to authorise reliance on that decision remains epistemically and institutionally sufficient.
TEMPORAL JUSTIFICATION
When does previously sufficient justification cease to be sufficient now?
REOPENING
What kind of change should force a continuing decision to become examinable again?
CONTINUATION
What must remain true for continued reliance on an inherited decision to remain warranted?
Six current question families.
TEMPORAL JUSTIFICATION
When does a previously justified decision cease to have sufficient current basis?
REOPENING AND TRANSLATION
What kind of change should force a continuing decision to become examinable again?
OBJECT APPLICABILITY
When does continuity of workflow cease to establish continuity of the authorised object?
UNCERTAINTY
How should unresolved sufficiency affect continued authority?
TIMING
Can correction arrive before consequence becomes practically fixed?
RESIDUAL VALUE
Does a decision-centred representation add anything that stronger existing architectures do not already provide?
Current public research areas.
CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS
Clarifying the research object, analytical distinctions and relationships with established fields.
EMPIRICAL AND COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
Testing whether proposed distinctions survive controlled comparison, bounded experiments and stronger existing explanations.
APPLICATIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
Examining what the research may imply for consequential human, organisational and human–AI decision systems.
Designed to be capable of losing.
If an established architecture performs the same function at equal or lower burden
If a construct adds no residual value
If the research object survives while a construct fails
Preserve the question, not the terminology.
A programme that cannot lose is not functioning as a research programme.
Emerging · Falsifiable · Under active comparison
When the Picture Still Authorises Action:
Toward a Research Programme on the Epistemic Integrity of Decision Systems over Time
Wojciech Z. Kaleta
Systems Research and Behavioral Science
Under peer review does not mean accepted, published or validated.
Current construct status
- Decision-Continuation Warrant
- Candidate decision-centred application profile
- Decision Justification State
- Provisional classification
- Authorised-Object Continuity
- Candidate interface architecture
None is currently presented as validated.
Next scientific steps
- Strong-comparator review
- Construct discrimination
- Bounded empirical investigation
- Transfer testing where relevant
The programme does not depend on any one current construct surviving in its present form.