ABSTRACT

Questions of method have been intertwined with questions of validation at least since the philosopher Rene Descartes initiated the so-called epistemological turn in the seventeenth century.  Two of Descartes’s most famous works, Rules for the Direction of the Mind and A Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting the Reason and Seeking for Truth in the Sciences, assume that the central task of epistemology is to prescribe methods for establishing objective truth. Thus, the best methods are defined as those most successful in producing objective knowledge-and objective knowledge is defined as that supported by the best available methods.