This paper proposes the discussion of epistemological issues concerning the teaching of pharmacognosy and its role in training and ownership of a scientific culture among students of the courses of Pharmacy, in addition to the potential contribution of the discipline for the establishment of a new model of professional practice. It argues that there is a close link between the crisis of professional identity of Pharmacy and epistemological inconsistencies in the disciplinary matrix of pharmacognosy, which from a teaching point of view it involves obstacles to the process of teaching and learning the discipline. Moreover, the experimental nature of pharmacognosy includes a conception of science and the object of knowledge that influences the selection of content and may constitute obstacles in mediation and appropriation of knowledge and demands for the pharmacy practice.
Pharmaceutical education; pharmacognosy; epistemology