Epistemic Warrant and Demarcation: A Philosophical Evaluation of Homeopathy, Acupuncture, and Cupping

The demarcation problem, defined as the attempt to distinguish science from non-science and pseudoscience, remains a central, though contested, issue in the philosophy of science. This article examines the epistemic and methodological status of three prominent Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) practices: homeopathy, acupuncture, and cupping therapy (hijama). Drawing on a pluralistic framework informed by Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, and Paul Feyerabend, the analysis deliberately sets aside questions of clinical efficacy in order to focus on the normative conditions under which claims to scientific authority are epistemically warranted.The study argues that CAM practices cannot be treated as epistemically homogeneous. Homeopathy is shown to exemplify a degenerating research programme that persistently claims scientific legitimacy while insulating its theoretical core from refutation, thereby warranting classification as pseudoscience in a strict sense. Acupuncture presents a more complex case: while its traditional theoretical core, grounded in Qi and meridian theory, occupies a non-scientific or pseudoscientific domain when defended as empirically validated, modernist reinterpretations that abandon this metaphysical core in favor of neurophysiological mechanisms constitute a distinct and potentially progressive empirical programme. Cupping therapy is best understood as a relic of a historically superseded medical framework, functioning as non-science unless rebranded through scientifically framed but unsubstantiated biomedical claims.By reconstructing the “hard core” and “protective belt” of each practice, the article advances a differentiated taxonomy of non-mainstream practices and concludes that demarcation is fundamentally a normative problem concerning epistemic trust.