On the Change of the Interrelations Between Science and Epistemology of Science in the Process of their Historical Development

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the epistemological problems of science that constitutes the bulk of philosophy of science. It has often been assumed that (1) the determining epistemic characteristics of science, the canons of rationality, are eternal and invariable and (2) the scientific activity and the reflection on this activity, the epistemological analysis of science, belong to two different domains, the first one being entirely independent of the second. The chapter discusses that epistemology of science attempts to expose the norms of activity that are accepted in science, and at the same time revealing the epistemic status of these norms; it deals with the philosophical problems that are not directly linked with a scientist's activity. The process of generating scientific knowledge is independent of the scientist's awareness of the norms governing it. One of the characteristic features of classical epistemology is that though it claimed to reveal the universal structure of science, it was in fact nothing more than an analysis of and a philosophical foundation for a certain type of science, classical mechanics being regarded as a paradigm of scientific construction.