Thomas Nickles

Although seriously defective, 17th-century ideas about discovery, justification, and positive science are not as hopeless, useless, and out of date as many philosophers assume. They appear to underlie modern scientific practice. The generationist view of justification interestingly links justification with discovery issues while employing a concept of empirical support quite foreign to the modern, consequentialist concept, which identifies empirical evidence with favorable test results (predictive/explanatory success). In the generationist sense, justification amounts to potential discovery or "discoverability". A partial defense of updated versions of these ideas is offered without disputing the importance of consequential testing. Much further work is needed!

Economic competitive advantage depends on innovation, which in turn requires pushing back the frontiers of various kinds of knowledge. Although understanding how knowledge grows ought to be a central topic of epistemology, epistemologists and philosophers of science have given it insufficient attention, even deliberately shunning the topic. Traditional confirmation theory and general epistemology offer little help at the frontier, because they are mostly retrospective rather than prospective. Nor have philosophers been highly visible in the science and technology policy realm, despite philosophy’s being a normative discipline. This paper suggests a way to address both deficits. Creative scientists, technologists, business managers, and policy makers face similar problems of decision-making at their respective frontiers of knowledge. These areas should therefore be fertile ground for both epistemologists and philosophers concerned with policy. Here I call attention to the importance of heuristic appraisal for “frontier epistemology” and to policy formation. Evaluation of the comparative promise or expected fertility of available options comprises a cluster of activities that cut across traditional discovery/justification and descriptive/normative distinctions. The study of weak modes of reasoning and evaluation is especially relevant to socio-economic policy.