Philosophers of Epistemology and Science

Socrates (Skepticism)

Exposed false certainty through questioning

Plato (Rationalism, Nativism)

Knowledge is innate and accessed by reason

Aristotle (Empiricism)

Knowledge begins with observation

Francis Bacon (Empiricism)

Promoted experimentation and warned against bias

René Descartes (Rationalism)

Found certainty in thinking itself

John Locke (Empiricism)

Rejected innate ideas and stressed experience

George Berkeley (Idealism, Empiricism)

Reality exists only as perceived

David Hume (Skeptical Empiricism)

Causation is habit not reason

Immanuel Kant (Synthesis)

Mind structures sensory experience

Auguste Comte (Positivism)

Society progresses toward scientific thinking

Wilhelm Dilthey (Hermeneutics)

Humans must be understood not explained

Wittgenstein I (Logical Positivism)

Meaningful language mirrors facts

Karl Popper (Critical Rationalism)

Science must be falsifiable

Thomas Kuhn (Relativism)

Science changes through paradigm shifts

Imre Lakatos (Sophisticated Falsificationism)

Science develops via research programs

Paul Feyerabend (Methodological Anarchism)

No fixed scientific method

C.S. Peirce (Pragmatism)

Science fixes belief through inquiry

W.V.O. Quine (Naturalism)

Knowledge should be studied scientifically

Bas van Fraassen (Constructive Empiricism)

Theories need only fit observations