meta-philosophical suspicion/hypothesis:
When philosophers (such as Richard Rorty and Paul Feyerabend) criticize contemporary philosophy through radical questioning of the legitimacy/foundations of epistemology (Erkenntnistheorie) – epistemology being right at the heart of philosophy – I think what they are truly attacking isn’t exactly epistemology in general, but instead specifically rationalist epistemology. And thus, despite providing cogent critiques of contemporary philosophical tradition, the negative conclusions that they draw on philosophy in general are too broad/general.
There is a trend of self-abasement in philosophy: of philosophers arguing that philosophy itself is a misguided, counter-productive and over-valued tradition/under-taking. In particular philosophy as an abstract tradition and philosophy as essentially epistemology. In this context, both Feyerabend and Rorty regularly draw connections to rationalism, e.g. to trends originating with Descartes or with pre-Socratics – their criticisms are made largely within contexts of identifying historical & theoretical consequences of various forms of rationalism. But they fail to reach the conclusion that this rationalistic form of philosophy which they criticize is of course contingent on whether philosophers operate within rationalism.The contents of their criticisms suggest that the epistemologies/philosophies they criticize are not the only possible/potential forms of philosophy…
And while I agree with their criticisms, I think that their criticisms are in fact themselves epistemology: they are epistemological, or meta-epistemological*, discussions and criticisms of rationalistic epistemologies! Their detailed, philosophical, critical exploration of the flaws of certain contemporary theories of and assumptions about knowledge are exactly what epistemology truly is! And indeed, this is philosophy.
*To me, it is relevant that a meta-level is involved, that the writings I have in mind are philosophy of epistemology. And, at the same time, I think a philosophical epistemology is one that includes – or rather appears only together with an attempt at – the next meta-level… And this goes for any topic or discipline… And this maybe a key distinction to rationalistic epistemology: that rationalistic epistemology is without the meta-level, presenting itself as an abstraction that is simply true in a vacuum. And this is anti-philosophical.