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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 April 2010
Two important debates have characterized mainstream epistemology in recent years. The first is the debate between foundationalists and anti-foundationalists. The second is the debate over the details of a naturalized epistemology. Both debates have meant that traditional concepts of rationality and justification are now understood in a new light. Both debates have helped focus attention on the future direction of epistemology, its goals and its limitations.
1 For example, see Moser, Paul K., ed., Empirical Knowledge: Readings in Contemporary Epistemology (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1986)Google Scholar. This anthology includes a helpful selection of recent work on both foundationalism and anti-foundationalism.
2 See Quine, Willard V. O., “Epistemology Naturalized,” in his Ontological Relativity and Other Essays (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), chap. 3, p. 69–90Google Scholar, Kornblith, Hilary, ed., Naturalizing Epistemology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), and the ensuing debate.Google Scholar
3 See Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970)Google Scholar, Lakatos, Imre and Musgrave, Alan, eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), and the ensuing debate.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 For example, see Barnes, S. Barry, Scientific Knowledge and Sociological Theory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974)Google Scholar, Bloor, David, Knowledge and Social Imagery (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1976), and the ensuing debate.Google Scholar
5 Reichenbach, Hans, Experience and Prediction (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938), p. 6f.Google Scholar
6 Bloor, Knowledge and Social Imagery.
7 In addition to those works already cited, see Collins, Hilary M., Changing Order (London: Sage, 1985)Google Scholar, and Latour, Bruno and Woolgar, W. Steve, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (London: Sage, 1979).Google Scholar
8 See Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 48f.Google Scholar, and Newton-Smith, William, The Rationality of Science (Oxford: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), p. 209.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
