EPISTEMOLOGICAL TRENDS IN 21ST CENTURY SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Recent trends in epistemology of science and of scientific research are discussed in this paper, under an explanatory view that considers them as observational variations occurring in a timeline, generated from a few underlying ahistorical and pretheoretical frames called "epistemological approaches", isomorphically as the known differences between "surface" and "deep" structures or between "type" and "token", etc. Within this hypothetical assumption avoiding a merely narrative or historical description and within some other criteria, firstly an essential reference, the epistemology of science between 1920 and 1990, is characterized as the key for understanding variations and trends that take place during the last 16 years in the development of epistemology of science. In the second main part, recent trends are discussed and explained. A more general and deeper view concerning the applicability of epistemology to the everyday practice of research is stressed in the concluding section.