Because even if you have experimental results in your favor, you still need epistemology to tell you why you can believe the results of the experiments. And you can't derive epistemology from experiments.
Logical positivism tried to do this, and failed. Michael Polanyi's Personal Knowledge pretty much killed logical positivism, because he showed that no scientist is in the fully objective position that was required to set up and evaluate the experiments.
> you still need epistemology to tell you why you can believe the results of the experiments
No, you don't. This is a common mistake. Science is not about knowledge, it's about explanations. The whole idea of "knowledge" is just part of a vast web of explanations that turn out to be exceptionally good at accounting for the data.
> logical positivism
The mistake of logical positivism is the unjustified assumption that there exists such a thing as "truth", and that this thing is accessible to us by thinking. It isn't. It's a consequence of the empirical observation that the scientific method converges towards something. "Truth" is just a label that we attach to the thing that it's converging to (or at least appears to be converging to -- we won't know if that limit actually exists until we get there).
Yes, that's true. Many people, including scientists, don't actually understand how the scientific method works.
However, there is also another possibility, and that is that the word "knowledge" is being used in two different ways. "Knowledge" in science is often used as a shorthand for "The best explanation we currently have in hand, one which has so far withstood all attempts to falsify it." This is different from the kind of knowledge studied by epistemology, but it is a not-entirely-unreasonable use of the word.
> Michael Polanyi's _Personal Knowledge_ pretty much killed logical positivism, because he showed that no scientist is in the fully objective position that was required to set up and evaluate the experiments.
That's an unusual claim. It's typically attributed to the criticisms of Popper and Quine, after which the foundations were undermined.
Why is that flaw fatal? Just borrow epistemology from the philosophers of whatever. Purity and inter-field spats are stupid, scientists just want the results.
What I'm willing to do is very personal. Personally, I don't need epistemology to judge whether I'm willing to consider some results for my next deduction, and no philosopher is in a position to tell me otherwise.
Seriously, philosophy is a personal endeavor. You derive your own, make your own deductions, and you believe in them. That makes it valid for you.
But ... if your philosophy is about how the world works, about some aspects of reality, and you want to ensure that both your philosophy and reality agree, then you can choose to do science:
Not to me, it doesn't. To me, philosophy is a profession inhabited by trained professionals working in academic departments, teaching students, and publishing in journals. That's not me. I'm just a human doing human things. We've existed for millions of years before philosophers and their departments and their journals came along.
More important, following this thread upward we see:
1. The urge of some scientists to offer science as a replacement for philosophy was scored as a fatal flaw
2. The question was asked, "Why is this a fatal flaw?"
3. That question was answered with the claim that something called "epistemology" is needed in order to make decisions based on experiences. Evidently, "epistemology" is an essential ingredient to human decisions which would be lost if we tried to replace philosophy with science.
4. But I said, no, I personally don't need "epistemology"--whatever that is--to make decisions.
5. Then it was claimed that whatever I'm doing to make decisions is inherently "philosophy." Yet, I'm not doing anything special, so if I'm doing philosophy then I guess everyone is doing philosophy, even scientists.
6. If that's true then what happened to "epistemology" and the fatal flaw of omitting it in the vain attempt to substitute science for philosophy?
Professional philosophers do essentially the same thing we do, they derive a set of personal beliefs that they see as trustworthy. The difference is that they go out and try to sell their philosophies to the public as if they were universal, but they aren't, so they almost always fail. Their books and publications tend to be filed under the heading "OPINIONS".
The second topic you mention is about the role of epistemology, in theory the study of knowledge but in practice an amalgam of (once again) opinions from different philosophers. It's difficult to explain epistemology without referring to those opinions, and those may be wrong anyway. Several pieces of the puzzle are still missing.
I mentioned two different topics because two different topics were brought up in this thread by other people. That tends to happen in threads.
On the topic of philosophy, if there's two kinds, the kind which comprises opinions sold by professional philosophers to the public as if they're universal but aren't, and the kind which comprises the activities we all do in life, then I'm pretty sure the former is the one being held up to scrutiny as Bergson and Canales try to elbow onto the podium alongside science.
On the topic of epistemology, I don't know a thing about it and I don't think I need to in order to believe the results of experiments or go about life, which pretty much is what also was claimed further up the thread.
Yes, I agree with you. These debates, controversies and confusion are a consequence of trying to discredit some philosophies and to advance others as "the true ones".
Logical positivism tried to do this, and failed. Michael Polanyi's Personal Knowledge pretty much killed logical positivism, because he showed that no scientist is in the fully objective position that was required to set up and evaluate the experiments.