The issue of method: between epistemological regulation and metascientific reconstruction ; A questão do método: entre a regulamentação epistemológica e a reconstrução metacientífica

The question of method raises the possibility of two types of approach. One of them believes that the method can only be derived from following scientific research practices. Historically, the search for method has turned to a model science like physics and not to the various and uneven sciences. The other approach advocates that it is necessary to have the method in advance to start and carry out any type of research with proficiency. If it were merely to describe - if that is even practicable - how scientific research is variously carried out, the philosophy of science would prove devoid of both epistemological and meta-scientific importance. This helps to understand why the philosophy of science has postulated reconstructive-normative authority over science. The view that there are no categorical imperatives of rationality makes it necessary to carry out the Herculean mission of following the successful cases of the search for knowledge in order to define which conducts deserve to be adopted in the research. Those who believe that it is unfeasible to aspire to possess tokens of knowledge without formulating and previously establishing the concept of knowledge see the method as a condition of possibility of cognitive success. Those who claim that it is impossible to say what knowledge is without invoking specific cases that exemplify it, maintain that the methodological apparatus needs to be identified by following the science as it is practiced. The meta-methodological impasse comes from the challenge of having to define whether it is appropriate to try to inventory the practices spread across the various domains of scientific investigation, trying to capture what they share or whether it is better to formulate a universal epistemology that nurtures the normative ambition of establishing how research should be conducted. ; A questão do método suscita a possibilidade de duas modalidades de abordagem. Uma corrente acredita que só do acompanhamento das práticas científicas de pesquisa se pode derivar o método. ...