Abstract
The concept of style, understood as a philosophical category, is a cornerstone of an non-positivist philosophy of science. According to that epistemology, the cognition is an active process resulting into facts.
Facts are neither discovered nor created. Facts are becoming, they are style-laden, but they are not wholly dependent on styles.
The cognition is an active interplay between the active (a style) and the passive (the nature). An epistemology which operates with the concept of style is an alternative to Kuhnian philosophy of science.
As I try to show, the concept of style is a mean to give a more accurate picture of the science because of its greater flexibility (as compared to the concept of paradigm). The present chapter is an attempt to explain what motivation for grasping the science in terms of style are and what consequences follow from.
Two examples are given: Fleck's theory of thought-styles and Hacking's historical epistemology. Fleck's use of the category is local; Hacking applies it universally.
Both approaches are complementary.