Given W.V. Quine’s and Donald Davidson’s extensive agreement about much of the philosophy of language and mind, and the obvious methodological parallels between Quine’s radical translation and Davidson’s radical interpretation, many—including Quine and Davidson—are puzzled by their occasional disagreements. I argue for the importance of attending to these disagreements, not just because doing so deepens our understanding of these influential thinkers, but because they are in fact the shadows thrown from two distinct conceptions of philosophical inquiry: Quine’s “naturalism” and what (...) I call Davidson’s “humanism.” The clash between Quine and Davidson thus provides valuable insight into the history of analytic naturalism and its malcontents. (shrink)

It is widely believed that empiricism, though once dominant, is now extinct. This turns out to be mistaken because of incorrect assumption about the initial dominance of logical empiricism and about the content and variety of logical empiricist views. In fact, prominent contemporary philosophers (Quine and Kuhn) who are thought to have demolished logical empiricism are shown to exhibit central views of the logical empiricists rather than having overthrown them.

This essay reconsiders Davidson's critical attribution of the scheme‐content distinction to Quine's naturalized epistemology. It focuses on Davidson's complaint that the presence of this distinction leads Quine to mistakenly construe neural input as evidence. While committed to this distinction, Quine's epistemology does not attempt to locate a justificatory foundation in sensory experience and does not then equate neural intake with evidence. Quine's central epistemological task is an explanatory one that attempts to scientifically clarify the route from stimulus to science. Davidson's (...) critical remarks wrongly assign concerns to Quine's view that it does not have and further obscures the status of his naturalized conception of epistemology. (shrink)

Goodman and Elgin have recommended a reconception of philosophy. A central part of their recommendation is to replace knowledge by understanding. According to Elgin, some important internalist and externalist theories of knowledge favor a sort of undesirable cognitive minimalism. Against Elgin I try to show how the challenge of cognitive minimalism can be met. Goodman and Elgin claim that defeat and confusion are built into the concept of knowledge. They demand either its revision or its replacement or its supplement. I (...) show that these are three very different options. While agreeing with the view that there may be good reasons for some revisions and supplements, I strongly disagree with Elgin and Goodman's replacement thesis. (shrink)

Since the publication of W. V. Quine's classic paper “Epistemology Naturalized” there have been many discussion on the virtues and vices of naturalistic epistemology. Within these discussions not much attention has been paid to a basic question: What makes an epistemology naturalistic? I give an answer by providing a logical geography of competing naturalistic positions. Then I defend naturalistic epistemology against the charge of the so-called causal fallacy. Finally I give a critical appraisal of different naturalistic theories of knowledge and (...) introduce cooperative naturalism as the most promising research strategy. (shrink)