"International Journal of Geography, Geology and Environment"

Epistemology as a branch of philosophical inquiry, carefully questions the very structure of knowledge, the methodological instruments of knowledge, the conditions of production of knowledge and the epistemic processes that make our assertions credible. Once these issues are translated into the context of geomorphology, the following sinking questions emerge: What are the epistemic limits of geomorphological knowledge? Is it purely empirical (based on observation and measurement) or does it necessarily rely on pre-empirical theoretical and philosophical scaffolds? And how could our predictive models be read as scientific certainties, as opposed to being only probabilistic predictions? These dialectical tensions are exactly what surround geomorphology as the focal point of the bigger philosophical argumentative discourse on the nature, possibilities and constrained boundaries of the natural sciences, calling on scholars to continually sharpen the epistemic outlines of their inquiries.

The need to take this course is particularly obvious when we consider the development of the geomorphological theory. This field has evolved in specific stages, first, based on traditional descriptive approaches as the example of William Morrise Davis and the idea of geomorphological cycle. Later critical studies were developed, led by the likes of Chorley that also questions existing assumptions and proposes a systems approach. A quantitative revolution that followed attempted to formalize further erosion, transport and sedimentation processes in a strict mathematical framework thus trying to determine universalized laws governing the evolution of the landscape. This historical process clearly depicts the very complex interaction between the empirical sciences and various philosophical paradigms. It has swung between a deep-rooted classical positivism, which rejects metaphysics which cannot be tested, to the idea of paradigm shifts with paradigms incommensurable to each other, as articulated by Thomas Kuhn. In addition, dialectical contradictions in the principle of falsifiability by Karl Popper and the theory of progressive versus degenerative research programmes by Imre Lakatos have deeply influenced the modern-day discussions on methodology in geomorphology.