Epistemology in your face

Abstract

I challenge James Maffie’s claim that a fruitful ‘anthroepistemology’ can be derived from what is effectively a ‘shotgun wedding’ between the strong programme in the sociology of scientific knowledge and a naturalistic version of analytic epistemology. The first problem is that the Strong Programme presupposes a late Wittgensteinian orientation to philosophy that does not allow for the kind of normative perspective Maffie seeks for his anthroepistemology. The second problem is that his conception of the relationship between epistemologists and first-order inquirers remains largely one designed to reproduce power asymmetries among knowledge producers. I conclude by arguing that these problems will not disappear until epistemology is reunited with the other branches of value theory and hence forced to face more squarely questions concerning the ends of knowledge.