Applied Epistemology and Argumentation in Epidemiology

Abstract

The general goal is to encourage informal logicians and those interested in applied epistemology to look at epidemiology as a paradigmatic science crucially dependant on argumentation to justify its claims. Three specific goals are: 1. exemplify applied epistemology by looking critically at causal argumentation in epidemiology, 2. show that justification of causal claims in epidemiology is a form of “argument to the best explanation,” 3. show that there could be a symbiotic relationship between epidemiology and work in various applied reasoning disciplines such as argumentation and “applied epistemology.”

Keywords

• scientific reasoning
• inference to the best explanation
• causality
• applied epistemology
• epidemiology
• ad hominem