Knowing Science

TLDR: The Social Knowing Science (SIS) as discussed by the authors is an epistemology of science that rejects empiricism and gives a central place to the concept of knowledge, which is not limited to perception, nor to observation.

Abstract: Knowing Science presents an epistemology of science that rejects empiricism and gives a central place to the concept of knowledge. Science aims at knowledge and progresses when it adds to the stock of knowledge. That knowledge is social knowing—it is known by the scientific community as a whole. Evidence is that from which knowledge can be obtained by inference. From which it follows that evidence is knowledge. Evidence is not limited to perception, nor to observation. Observation supplies evidence that is basic relative to a field of enquiry and can be highly non-perceptual. Theoretical knowledge is typically gained by inference to the only explanation, in which competing plausible hypotheses are falsified by the evidence. In cases where not all competing hypotheses are refuted, scientific hypotheses are not known but possess varying degrees of plausibility. Plausibilities in the light of the evidence are probabilities and link eliminative explanationism to Bayesian conditionalization. Scientific realism and anti-realism are considered as metascientific claims. Such global metascientific claims are rejected—track records give us only local metascientific claims.