Trust in Science. A Systematic-Historical Introduction

The phrase ‘trust in science’ raises the question of how trust can have a place here, especially when it is not ‘merely’ about public trust in science, but about trust in science itself. Does this not constitute a category mistake? Or perhaps a fact that nonetheless violates central epistemic norms? An intuitive strategy to address these concerns is to epistemologize trust itself. Accordingly, trust in science would itself be a matter of knowledge. However, epistemic trust (in science) presents both a conceptual and a practical problem. Normative positions that seem to offer a solution to these difficulties like the assurance view face their own conceptual and practical problems. This paper demonstrates how theory development leads to a virtue theory of trust, which, by unifying the epistemic and normative dimensions, allows for solving the conceptual problems. However, it too is confronted with challenging practical issues.