Epistemology in the face of strong sociology of knowledge

Abstract

Advocates of the strong programme in the sociology of knowledge contend that its four defining tenets entail the elimination and replacement tout court of epistemology by strong sociology of knowledge. I advance a naturalistic conception of both substantive and meta-level epistemological inquiry which fully complies with these four tenets and thereby shows that the strong programme neither entails nor even augurs the demise of epistemology.Key words anthropology of epistemology, epistemology, naturalism, strong programme in the sociology of knowledge I INTRODUCTION 'Epistemology needs history ', declares Elster (1982: 148). It needs history in order to distinguish different causal paths of belief formation, stated from operative reasons, 'hot' from 'cold' cognition, psychodynamics from psychologic, distortion from illusion, and wishful thinking from self-deception. Campbell (1974), Giere (1988), Goldman (1986) and others likewise aver epistemology's need for history. Commonplace epistemic activities such as assessing the epistemic credentials of belief require our attending to the causal genesis or pedigree of belief: how was belief arrived at? What kind of cognitive process contributed to its formation? What sorts of factors causally influenced its fixation?

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