Science and Knowledge
Here is a problem for folks who have a high level of confidence that the sciences are a source of propositional knowledge.
There are good reasons for holding that (i) propositional knowledge requires epistemic certainty and (ii) typical scientific claims are not matters of epistemic certainty.
If (i) and (ii) are true, then the sciences are not reliable sources of propositional knowledge, even though they provide reasonable beliefs. And if the sciences are not trustworthy sources of knowledge, then it seems unreasonable to believe that knowledge is a feasible goal of the sciences.
So if knowledge isn’t a goal of the sciences, what is? Reasonable belief? Explanatory adequacy? Predictive value? Should we temper our confidence in science with a bit of healthy skepticism?
And why use ‘science’ to refer to these disciplines? (Note that ‘science’ comes from the Latin scientia which means ‘knowledge.’) Shouldn’t we reserve ‘science’ for disciplines such as math and logic, which are (arguably) sources of epistemic certainty?