Abstract

This paper examines the notion of paleontological data in order to indicate the conditions of possibility of different paleontological spaces of knowledge. According to several sociologists and philosophers of science, data can speak for themselves, thus creating fracture between ontology and epistemology. By using the devices offered by historical epistemology, this work rejects this very thesis. It conversely argues that a possible unification between bottom-up and top-down philosophical approaches to science is essential in order to understand the preconditions that makes for the possibility of a scientific fact.