Descriptive Turn in Epistemology

Abstract

The article shows that cultural-historical epistemology erroneously puts forward the thesis of a global crisis in the sphere of modern epistemology and philosophy of science. The key error of such a diagnosis is rooted in the confusion of basic concepts. In the development of epistemological studies, the period of the last decades of the twentieth century, which was called the “descriptive turn”, is very important. In the philosophy of science, the task was set to reflect the real practice of scientific research. This has been successfully carried out in a number of works by Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyerabend, Latour and others. The task of building universal norms of scientific research has faded into the background. In this regard, the subjects of "methodology of science", on the one hand, and "epistemology" and "philosophy of science", on the other hand, were distinguished. The formulation of norms and standards for scientific research has become the task of methodology. Describing scientific practice, including scientific revolutions, has become the task of the professional history of science. The philosophical understanding of the processes of historical evolution, the identification of the laws of the development of science has become the subject of the philosophy of science. Epistemology, in turn, is called upon to consider the phenomenon of knowledge not only in science, but also more broadly – in a variety of historical and cultural contexts. In modern studies in the field of epistemology and philosophy of science, case studies are important, as they provide invaluable empirical material for philosophical generalizations. As for the construction of universal standards for scientific work, such a task, as Feyerabend showed, seems to be impossible. Moreover, the universal methodological standard does not allow discovering the uniqueness of scientific research situations.