The article addresses the issue of usefulness of pyramid and boat epistemological metaphors in the process of cognition in security sciences, with the aim of creating a coherent epistemological theory of subject security. This usefulness was examined for the sake of the basic components of epistemology: the truth and its sources, the scope of cognition, and the specificity of the subject of cognition – subject security. A deductive method with syllogistic drawing of conclusions leading to the solution of the general problem and the probability of the working hypothesis was used. As a result, it was established that understanding the truth and its sources, methods of finding the truth, and determining the scope of cognition of subject security are supported by an epistemology subordinated to the boat metaphor. This metaphor allows for a less fundamental, but more systemic, look at the subject security. The holistic nature of the boat metaphor results from the overlapping of concepts (parts of the planking) built on the skeleton, the core of which is formed by the axiology of the security of the subject (keel), and the shape is given by ontology, epistemology, and methodology of the security of the subject (frames) and paradigms (stringers).