Antecedents: Comparative Epistemology as an Outcome

Abstract

As was indicated in Chapter 1, “comparative epistemology” developed against the backdrop of a number of developments and reversals in the history of philosophical thinking. As Kant (1781/1975) points out in his Introduction to the second edition of his Critique of Pure Reason, at least two important turning points must be identified. Both begin with an epistemological crisis, a paralysing epistemological malaise, but eventually result in a scientific revolution, putting scientific inquiry on a completely new and promising footing. These “happy endings”, however, presuppose significant “therapeutic interventions” in the form of thorough reconsiderations of the epistemological conditions for producing reliable knowledge.