Inspired by Bas van Fraassen’s Stance Empiricism, Anjan Chakravartty has developed a pluralistic account of what he calls epistemic stances towards scientific ontology. In this paper, I examine whether Chakravartty’s stance pluralism can exclude epistemic stances that licence pseudo-scientific practices like those found in Scientology. I argue that it cannot. Chakravartty’s stance pluralism is therefore prone to a form of debilitating relativism. Consequently, we need (1) some ground or constraint in relation to which epistemic stances can be ranked by degrees, and (2) some way to demarcate science from pseudo-science so that we know what epistemic stances are about. Regarding (1), I argue that empirical detectability can serve as the ground in relation to which epistemic stances are ranked by degrees. Regarding (2), I argue for ranking sciences on a continuum according to established institutional criteria, rather than attempting to draw a strict demarcation.

受 Bas van Fraassen 的立场经验主义的启发，Anjan Chakravartty 对他所谓的对科学本体论的认知立场进行了多元解释。在本文中，我检验了查克拉瓦蒂的立场多元主义是否可以排除允许伪科学实践（如科学教派）的认识论立场。我认为它不能。因此，查克拉瓦蒂的立场多元主义倾向于一种削弱相对主义的形式。因此，我们需要（1）关于哪些认识立场可以按程度排序的一些基础或约束，以及（2）某种区分科学与伪科学的方法，以便我们知道认识立场是关于什么的。关于（1），我认为经验可检测性可以作为认知立场按等级排列的基础。关于（2），我主张根据既定的制度标准在一个连续统一体上对科学进行排名，而不是试图进行严格的划分。