Abstract

Many thinkers believe currently that the collapse of foundationalist epistemology threatens the prospects for an empiricist epistemology. Arguments by Pierre Duhem, Willard Van Orman Quine, Thomas Kuhn, and Paul K. Feyerabend, each of which use the underdetermination thesis, are believed to demonstrate that rational analysis is nothing more than question-begging argumentation. Proponents of the Strong Programme in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge believe that these arguments necessitate a sociological analysis of scientific belief. ;I argue that by defining knowledge as true, justified belief, foundationalist epistemology mistakenly restricts the scope of rational belief to demonstrably certain beliefs. If it too narrowly identifies the tools of rational analysis with those of deductive logic, empiricism becomes vulnerable to various forms of epistemological skepticism. But, if epistemology focuses on justification rather than truth, turning from concerns about certainty to a fallibilist attitude towards belief, then empiricism remains viable. This fallibilist turn is supported by an analysis of the actual development of science. ;Next, I argue that the Strong Programme in the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge offers no improvement over a rational account of scientific belief. It either reduces to absurdity by implying that the physical world does nothing to constrain scientific belief, or is weakened by underdetermination to at least the same degree as are rational accounts of scientific belief. Ultimately, the demise of foundationalism does not require a non-rational, sociological, analysis, but only a fallibilist stance towards the justification of scientific belief. ;Finally, I criticize a Strong Programme empirical case study that attempts to explain the rise of experimentalism in seventeenth-century natural philosophy as the result of social and political, rather than philosophical, causes. I show that key philosophical texts from the principals involved are overlooked and argue that these neglected texts tell against the causal explanations offered by the Strong Programme. Further, I argue that even on the basis of the texts it presents, the Strong Programme cannot be defended as a replacement for philosophy of science.