Two Notions of Justification in Science

The sciences are not only the most sophisticated human
enterprise of knowledge gathering, they are at the same
time epistemically self-conscious to a considerable degree.
Assessments of the epistemic status of data, inferences
and theories play an important role in the very practice of
science, which therefore includes a wealth of epistemic
notions, norms and considerations. In one sense of the
expression "epistemology of science�, some sort of an
epistemology is thus included in scientific practice. This
epistemology is usually captured under the heading of
methodology, and its explication – e.g. concerning the
standards of confirmation or theory choice – has also been
a central business of the philosophy of science. Still, there
are further epistemological questions about scientific
knowledge claims that are typically not addressed within
scientific practice. These include topics such as the
underdetermination of theories by all evidence, the nomiracle
argument, or the theory-dependence of observations.
In the present paper, I will discuss the notion of
justification that is operative in science and thus try to shed
some light on the relation between the two epistemologies.