Designates what pertains to the general form of scientificity, whereas “scientific” refers to what pertains to science in its concrete, effective realization.
More specifically
The epistemic concerns the conditions of possibility of scientific knowledge: its criteria of validity, admissible methods, forms of proof, and rational norms that enable discourse to claim scientific status. By contrast, “scientific” qualifies the actual state of the sciences: their institutions, protocols, results, and historical controversies.
The epistemic focuses on formal structures (testability, falsifiability, reproducibility, modelling) and conceptual conditions for the elaboration of rigorous knowledge. Thus, a proposition may be epistemic without yet being scientific: it belongs to preliminary methodological debate. Conversely, socially perceived “scientific” practices may lack epistemic foundation (pseudoscience, technocratic discourse, scientism).
Philosophically, the epistemic includes meta-science: reflection on methods, paradigms (Kuhn), epistemological ruptures (Bachelard), and conceptual instruments. This distinction avoids two pitfalls: reducing science to contingent applications, or absolutizing historically situated methods.
Moreover, “scientificity” is not fixed once and for all: it evolves with conceptual, technical, and cultural transformations — a dimension not necessarily conveyed by the qualifier “scientific.”
Further reading:
– Gaston Bachelard, The Formation of the Scientific Mind
– Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery
– Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
– Imre Lakatos, The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes
– Paul Feyerabend, Against Method
– Bruno Bérard, Metaphysics for Everyone (Angelico Press), trad. of Métaphysique pour tous (Paris, L’Harmattan, 2022); It. Sui sentieri della metafisica; Sp. ¿Qué es la metafísica?; De. Was ist Metaphysik?