Quine's argument for a naturalized epistemology is routinely perceived as an argument from despair: traditional epistemology must be abandoned because all attempts to deduce our scientific theories from sense experience have failed. In this paper, I will show that this picture is historically inaccurate and that Quine's argument against first philosophy is considerably stronger and subtler than the standard conception suggests. For Quine, the first philosopher's quest for foundations is inherently incoherent; the very idea of a self-sufficient sense datum language (...) is a mistake, there is no science-independent perspective from which to validate science. I will argue that a great deal of the confusion surrounding Quine's argument is prompted by certain phrases in his seminal ‘Epistemology Naturalized’. Scrutinizing Quine's work both before and after the latter paper provides a better key to understanding his remarkable views about the epistemological relation between theory and evidence. (shrink)

How should we understand the relationship between the contents of our color, causal, modal, and evaluative beliefs, on the one hand, and color, causal, modal, and evaluative properties, on the other? According to Barry Stroud (2011), because of the nature of the contents of those types of beliefs, we should also think that what he calls a “negative metaphysical verdict” on the latter is not one that we could consistently maintain. The metaphysical project aims to arrive at an improved conception (...) of ourselves and our relation the world, no matter if that conception is positive or negative. But if Stroud is right that we cannot consistently arrive at the view that all of our causal, modal, and evaluative beliefs are systematically false, we will see that we cannot consistently reach the negative verdict. But failure to reach the negative verdict doesn’t mean that we have reached the positive verdict. Stroud calls this philosophical failure “metaphysical dissatisfaction”. In this paper, I argue that we can appropriate a metaepistemological response to the problem of the external world which shares its core features with Stroud’s (2000, 2011) arguments, but which nevertheless leaves us with a distinctive kind of epistemological dissatisfaction. (shrink)

For at least several decades, and arguably since the time of Descartes, it has been fashionable to offer scientific or quasi-scientific arguments for skepticism about human knowledge. I critique five attempts to argue for skeptical conclusions from the findings of science and scientifically informed common sense.

Central elements of W. V. Quine’s epistemology are widely and deeply misunderstood, including the following. He held from first to last that our evidence consists of the stimulations of our sense organs, and of our observations, and of our sensory experiences; meeting the interpretive challenge this poses is a sine qua non of understanding his epistemology. He counted both “This is blue” and “This looks blue” as observation sentences. He took introspective reports to have a high degree of certainty. He (...) endorsed outright Hume’s “skeptical” argument concerning induction. His naturalized epistemology is simply naturalistic, or scientific, epistemology stripped of the project of rational reconstruction, and is thoroughly normative. Quine was unconditionally a scientific philosopher who took our theories to be answerable ultimately to our perceptual experiences (sensations)—and conditionally an empiricist, empiricism being a scientific theory that has no competitors worthy of the name. I attempt to make all of this clear, and conclude by offering a concise formulation of his epistemology. (shrink)

Despite their divergent metaphysical assumptions, Reformed and evolutionary epistemologists have converged on the notion of proper basicality. Where Reformed epistemologists appeal to God, who has designed the mind in such a way that it successfully aims at the truth, evolutionary epistemologists appeal to natural selection as a mechanism that favors truth-preserving cognitive capacities. This paper investigates whether Reformed and evolutionary epistemological accounts of theistic belief are compatible. We will argue that their chief incompatibility lies in the noetic effects of sin (...) and what may be termed the noetic effects of evolution, systematic tendencies wherein human cognitive faculties go awry. We propose a reconceptualization of the noetic effects of sin to mitigate this tension. (shrink)

The aim of the present volume is to draw the balance of naturalism's success so far.

This is a defense of the doctrine of scientific realism. SR is defined through the following two claims: Most essential unobservables posited by the well-established current scientific theories exist independently of our minds. We know our well-established scientific theories to be approximately true. I first offer positive argumentation for SR. I begin with the so-called 'success arguments' for SR: 1) scientific theories most of the times entail successful predictions; 2) science is methodologically successful in generating empirically successful theories. SR explains (...) these facts via inference to the best explanation. I combine Hacking's experimental argument for entity realism with Salmon's common-cause principle. I take entity realism to be foundational to SR: one may believe in the existence of some theoretical entities without believing in any particular theory in which these are embedded. Its motivation comes from experimental practice, where the manipulation of these entities often relies on incompatible theoretical accounts. The underdetermination topic is thereafter discussed. Several attempts to distinguish between an observable and an unobservable realm are critically discussed, as well as the possibility that for any given theory, there are empirically equivalents generated by means of algorithms. I present extensive argumentation to the effect that such algorithmic rivals are not to be taken seriously. Social constructivism is being critically treated. I proceed by distinguishing between a metaphysical, a semantic, and an epistemic variant of SC. I conclude that only a moderate metaphysical constructivism can stand on its own feet. Its claim is merely that some facts about the world are socially constructed. I finish with a plea for a selective SR, able to do justice to the presence of both instrumentalism and modest constructivism in scientific practice. (shrink)

Keywords: W.V.Quine claimed that relativism is paradoxical and unacceptable; nevertheless, his own views concerning truth and the underdetermination of theories by data amount to an interesting and plausible form of relativism.

Naturalists seek continuity between epistemology and science. Critics argue this illegitimately expands science into epistemology and commits the fallacy of scientism. Must naturalists commit this fallacy? I defend a conception of naturalized epistemology which upholds the non-identity of epistemic ends, norms, and concepts with scientific evidential ends, norms, and concepts. I argue it enables naturalists to avoid three leading scientistic fallacies: dogmatism, one dimensionalism, and granting science an epistemic monopoly.

Quine's naturalized epistemology is ambivalent between a modest naturalism according to which epistemology is an a posteriori discipline, an integral part of the web of empirical belief, and a scientistic naturalism according to which epistemology is to be conducted wholly within the natural sciences. This ambivalence is encouraged by Quine's ambiguous use of science, to mean sometimes, broadly, our presumed empirical knowledge and sometimes, narrowly, the natural sciences. Quine's modest naturalism is reformist, tackling the traditional epistemological problems in a novel (...) way; his scientistic naturalism is revolutionary, requiring restriction and reconceptualization of epistemological problems. In particular, his scientistic naturalism trivializes the question of the epistemic standing of the natural sciences, whereas modest naturalism takes it seriously, and can offer a plausible answer. (shrink)

In the wake of Frege's attack on psychologism and the subsequent influence of Logical Positivism, psychological considerations in philosophy came to be viewed with suspicion. Philosophical questions, especially epistemological ones, were viewed as 'logical' questions, and logic was sharply separated from psychology. Various efforts have been made of late to reconnect epistemology with psychology. But there is little agreement about how such connections should be made, and doubts about the place of psychology within epistemology are still much in evidence. It (...) therefore remains to be clarified just how such links should be established, and what impact they would have on the direction of epistemology. (shrink)

Jerry Fodor and Ernest Lepore [(1992) Holism: a shopper's guide, Oxford: Blackwell; (1996) in R. McCauley (Ed.) The Churchlands and their critics , Cambridge: Blackwell] have launched a powerful attack against Paul Churchland's connectionist theory of semantics--also known as state space semantics. In one part of their attack, Fodor and Lepore argue that the architectural and functional idiosyncrasies of connectionist networks preclude us from articulating a notion of conceptual similarity applicable to state space semantics. Aarre Laakso and Gary Cottrell [(1998) (...) in M. A. Gernsbacher & S. Derry (Eds) Proceedings of the 20th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Mahway, NJ: Erlbaum; Philosophical Psychology ] 13, 47-76 have recently run a number of simulations on simple feedforward networks and applied a mathematical technique for measuring conceptual similarity in the representational spaces of those networks. Laakso and Cottrell contend that their results decisively refute Fodor and Lepore's criticisms. Paul Churchland [(1998) Journal of Philosophy, 95, 5-32 ] goes further. He uses Laakso and Cottrell's neurosimulations to argue that connectionism does furnish us with all we need to construct a robust theory of semantics and a robust theory of translation. In this paper I shall argue that whereas Laakso and Cottrell's neurocomputational results may provide us with a rebuttal of Fodor and Lepore's argument, Churchland's conclusion is far too optimistic. In particular, I shall try to show that connectionist modelling does not provide any objective criterion for achieving a one-to-one accurate translational mapping across networks. (shrink)

Alex Orenstein: “Inscrutability Scrutinized”: This is a reply to Quine's comments on an earlier paper. In his comments on that earlier paper Quine acknowledged that distinguishing the inscrutability of reference from the indeterminacy of meaning might be preferable to other of his ways of referring to this distinction. He also agreed that inscrutability of reference is a strong claim, a “thesis”, proven as per model theory. His examples of inscrutability are examined and supplemented with other examples. By contrast, indeterminacy of (...) meaning is merely a “conjecture,” a product of Quine's distinctive behaviorist approach. It is made clear that Quine's distinctive ‘stimulus meaning’ is a non‐decomposable idiom. Stimulus meaning is no more a species of meaning than toy horse is a species of horse. I exploit a view he introduced elsewhere when discussing choosing between intuitionist and classical logic. Quine's ersatz conception of meaning and its byproducts should be regarded along similar lines as the intuitionism versus classical logic debate: not as “denying a doctrine but as changing the subject.”. (shrink)

Ernie Lepore: Quine, Analyticity, and Transcendence: In “Two Dogmas of Empiricism” Quine characterizes and rejects three approaches to making sense of analyticity. One approach attempts to reduce putative analytic statements to logical truths by synonym substitution. A second approach is to identify analytic statements with “semantic rules,” or “meaning postulates.” A third approach relies on the verificationist theory of meaning. According to that theory, “every meaningful statement is held to be translatable into a statement (true or false) about immediate experience, (...) or, less radically, “each statement, taken in isolation from its fellows, can admit of confirmation or information.” Analytic statements are, then, those that are confirmed come what experiences may. If either version of the verificationist approach were correct, then there would be objective facts about the extensions of terms from intuitive semantics, for example, “‘…’ is synonymous with ‘___’” and “‘…’ is analytic,” across all languages. In this essay, I focus my discussion primarily on the third, verificationist, approach – though what I shall have to say will bear on the second approach as well. In particular, I explain the models of language contained in verificationism and the weaker confirmationism, and why most positivists abandoned the former for the latter. I explain the connection between confirmationism and intuitive semantics and why considerations of holism alone are incapable of severing that connection. (shrink)

The article investigates and defends central elements of Quine’s naturalized epistemology. Davidson’s coherentist attacks on Quine’s empiricismare dismissed. The view is advocated that sensory experience plays an essential epistemic role, and that, therefore, the study of perception must be taken seriously in the theory of knowledge. The author rejects, however, Quine’s behavioristic conception of experience as stimulation of sensory receptors and instead argues for a richer conception, according to which an experience is a sensory state of things appearing in certain (...) ways to us. Finally, it is shown that this standpoint allows us to acknowledge a given element in experience without falling victim to a myth. (shrink)

This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

Righting Epistemology defends an unrecognized Humean conception of epistemic justification, showing that he is no skeptic, and an argument of his that refutes all extant alternative conceptions. It goes on to trace the development of his thought in Sir Karl Popper, Nelson Goodman, W. V. Quine and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Quine is routinely perceived as having changed his mind about the scope of the Duhem-Quine thesis, shifting from what has been called an 'extreme holism' to a more moderate view. Where the Quine of 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism' argues that “the unit of empirical significance is the whole of science” (1951, 42), the later Quine seems to back away from this “needlessly strong statement of holism” (1991, 393). In this paper, I show that the received view is incorrect. I distinguish (...) three ways in which Quine's early holism can be said to be wide-scoped and show that he has never changed his mind about any one of these aspects of his early view. Instead, I argue that Quine's apparent change of mind can be explained away as a mere shift of emphasis. (shrink)

In this paper, I examine Quine's views on the epistemology of logic. According to Quine's influential holistic account, logic is central in the “web of belief” that comprises our overall theory of the world. Because of this, revisions to logic would have devastating systematic consequences, and this explains why we are loath to make such revisions. In section1, I clarify this idea and thereby show that Quine actually takes the web of belief to have asymmetrical internal structure. This raises two (...) puzzles. First, as I show in section 2, Quine's mature thoroughly naturalized view has it that logic is simply obvious, and this is explains why we do not typically consider revising it. While Quine presents this naturalized view as a way to make good on his earlier metaphor of centrality in a web of belief, I argue that the resources of Quine's naturalized epistemology cannot adequately explain why we are reluctant to revise logic. And, Quine seems to recognize this point himself. In light of this, I explain in section 3 how Quine can allow that our overall scientific theory has systematic structure in a way that is consistent with his naturalistic strictures. Second, the asymmetrical internal structure of the web of belief seems to be inconsistent with its being a holistic web at all. I defuse this problem in section 4 by showing how Quine distinguishes between structural and confirmational considerations. I close by using this distinction to show how Quine's view can evade Michael Friedman’s criticisms, and allow for important methodological distinctions between areas of the web of belief. (shrink)

SummaryCertain problems in Quine's philosophy of language are discussed. The first issue is his theory of how an observation sentence is understood. This is part of the more general problem of constructing a theory for how any single cognitive sentence is grasped. Quine's thesis of the inscrutability of reference, according to which it is senseless to ask what the referent of a term is, is our second subject. The content and truth of this thesis is discussed. In this context three (...) rather precise versions of the thesis are presented. The third issue to be treated is the relationship between the inscrutability thesis and theories of observation sentence understanding. The main conclusion of the paper is that the inscrutability thesis can hardly be true. (shrink)

Semantic Indeterminacy and Scientific Realism are perhaps the two most ubiquitous and influential doctrines of the Quinean corpus. My concern is to argue against neither in isolation, but against their joint compatibility. Scientific Realism, I argue, when understood as Quine's realistic attitude toward the posits of physical theory, is essentially intentional in character. Thus, Realism requires Intentionality. In Section 1, I provide some necessary exegesis. In Section 2, I attempt to show how this Realism/Intentionality connection arises, surprisingly, within Quine's own (...) mature work to create a tension in his views which he does not himself resolve. In Section 3, I examine the source of the Realism/Intentionality connection more deeply, and respond to possible Quinean objections to my account. In Section 4, I consider the consequences of the connection for various debates in recent analytic philosophy. (shrink)

This paper examines naturalized epistemology's prospects for dealing with Cartesian skepticism and the traditional problem of induction. It is argued that Quine's approach fails to satisfy the skeptic who does not already embrace some version of scientific method. In addition, it is argued that Goldman's reliabilism enables one to address these issues empirically only if one rejects the view that if we are capable of confirming an empirical hypothesis, we are also capable of disconfirming it. The article ends with a (...) negative appraisal of the role relevant alternatives play in Goldman's account, particularly with regard to second order knowledge. (shrink)

Descartes held that it is impossible to make true statements about what we perceive, but I go over alleged cases of illusory experience to show why such a skeptical conclusion (and recourse to God) is overblown. The overreaction, I contend, stems from an insufficient awareness of the habitual expectations brought to any given experience. These expectations manifest themselves in motor terms, as perception constantly prompts and updates an embodied posture of readiness for what might come next. Such habitual anticipations work (...) best when they efface themselves, so it is easy to blame perception when our expectations get frustrated. I illustrate this misdirected blame with the example of a stick partially in water: it is only because we expect the stick to be straight that its appearance as bent is deemed problematic. I thus conclude that, if we factor in the habitual interpretations operative in perception and switch to a processual view that allows practical engagement, we can deflate the worries that led Descartes to rule out perceptual truths. Distancing myself from the naïve “sign” of folk semiotics, my critique draws inspiration from the triadic semiotic model developed in some late medieval schools of Portugal. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider an evolutionary debunking argument (EDA) that purports to undermine the epistemic justification of the belief in the reliability of our belief-forming processes, and an evolutionary vindicating argument (EVA) that seeks to establish that such a belief is epistemically justified. Whereas the EDA in question seems to fall prey to crippling self-defeat, the EVA under consideration seems to fall prey to vicious circularity. My interest in those arguments and the problems they face lies in what they (...) might tell us about the possibly aporetic nature of reason. For, if we take the EDA and the EVA in question to consist of true or plausible premises and valid inferences at which we arrive through a meticulous use of reason, then their falling victim to either crippling self-defeat or vicious circularity might be regarded as a sign that, when we push rational reflection on the reliability, or lack thereof, of our belief-forming capacities to the limit, we end up in a situation of aporia from which there seems to be no escape. (shrink)

In this paper we will try to show the differences between Quine’s and Gibson’s interpretation of the naturalized epistemology project. Namely, although Gibson points out that the genetic approach advocated by Quine is the best strategy there is to investigate the relations between evidence and theory, and that externalizing of empiricism that it requires is one of Quine’s major philosophical contributions, we argue that the assumptions on which Gibson’s project is based, apart from the fact that they are in conflict (...) with some strongly held intuitions, would have to be essentially different from Quine’s. In other words, contrary to Quine’s position within which we have the possibility of staying on more moderate, and in our opinion, more plausible behavioristic line of approach, we will try to show that one of the consequences of Gibson’s interpretation is that this possibility is ruled out in Gibson’s case. On the other hand, this should enable us to draw some more radical conclusions about the nature of Quine’s epistemological project. (shrink)

In this thesis, I elaborate and defend Donald Davidson's account of knowing one's own mental states that exhibit first-person authority. To that end, I place Davidson's account among others in the philosophical landscape concerning self-knowledge. Next, I examine his response to philosophical challenges that arise from mental content externalism and self-deception. Finally, I draw some insights froms Davidson's account to the broader aims of epsitemology.

I offer an explicit account of the underdetermination thesis as well as of the many challenges it poses to scientific realism; a way to answer to these challenges is explored and outlined, by shifting attention to the content of theories. I argue that, even if we have solid grounds (as I contend we do) to support that some varieties of the underdetermination thesis are true, scientific realism can still offer an adequate picture of the aims and achievements of science.

This paper examines three cases of the clash between science and philosophy: Zeno’s paradoxes, the Frame Problem, and a recent attempt to experimentally refute skepticism. In all three cases, the relevant science claims to have resolved the purported problem. The sciences, construing the term broadly, are mathematics, artificial intelligence, and psychology. The goal of this paper is to show that none of the three scientific solutions work. The three philosophical problems remain as vibrant as ever in the face of robust (...) scientific attempts to dispel them. The paper concludes by examining some consequences of this persistence. (shrink)

La propuesta de naturalización de la epistemología explicitada por Quine en su célebre artículo de 1969 ha generado debates y consecuencias que de algún modo se prolongan hasta nuestros días a través de la evaluación de diversas propuestas de naturalización, todas ellas de algún modo vinculadas a la idea original de Quine. Sin embargo, varios aspectos bastante centrales de su propuesta continúan sin ser suficientemente aclarados. Ni siquiera se ha logrado consenso sobre cuáles serían las tareas específicas de una epistemología (...) naturalizada y cuáles retoma de la tradición. La persistencia de dichos debates no debería resultar sorprendente si uno considera que, al menos para la interpretación inicial, se estaría proponiendo un programa descriptivo para una disciplina que tenía un propósito claramente normativo; o que se estaba proponiendo apoyarse en las ciencias cuando la disciplina había nacido precisamente para fundamentar a esos estudios. Incluso, que se trataba de proponer una filosofía luego que se prescindiera de la aprioridad y de la analiticidad, cuando la tradición había concebido a la filosofía justamente a partir de ese tipo de enunciados. Para colmo, la epistemología naturalizada proclamaba abiertamente que entre epistemología y ciencias no habría fundamentación sino circularidad supuestamente no ilegítima. Eran pues, varias y fundamentales las posiciones de la tradición que aparecían así claramente desafiadas. En este sentido, en este trabajo nos proponemos: 1 – Revisar sumariamente el contenido básico de la propuesta de naturalización en relación a los temas clásicos de la teoría del conocimiento. 2 – Analizar y evaluar la acusación de falta de normatividad de la epistemología naturalizada. 3 – Analizar el tema de la aprioridad y la analiticidad en relación a las tareas filosóficas de la epistemología naturalizada. 4 – Analizar el posible fundamento y la supuesta circularidad de la propuesta de naturalización.En todos los casos vamos a defender una interpretación algo alejada de la que ha sido mayoritaria y vamos a apoyarnos para ello en la propios desarrollos epistemológicos de Quine y en algunas aclaraciones realizadas por el autor en escritos tardíos. En el tema del fundamento y la circularidad creemos oportuno vincular su posición con la idea de equilibrio reflexivo de Goodman y con desarrollos más recientes en teoría de la justificación no lineal. (shrink)

Cilj ovog rada je da razmotrimo zašto, i na koji način se Kvajn pozicionira između logičkih pozitivista i epistemoloških nihilista u pogledu shvatanja empirijskog svedočanstva. Naime, on će na nov način formulisati kriterijume opservacionalnosti s namerom da prevaziđe probleme koji su za logički pozitivizam bili nepremostivi, a da time ne žrtvuje objektivnost nauke poljuljanu krahom tradicionalnog pristupa epistemološkim pitanjima. Privučeni provokativnošću Kvajnovog istovremenog ispoljavanja radikalnih, ali i konzervativnih tendencija, odnosno namere da održi balans između stanovišta tradicionalne filozofije i epistemološkog nihilizma, (...) nastojaćemo da ispitamo koliko je Kvajn uspešan u svojoj zamisli. U zavisnosti od odgovora na to pitanje ocenićemo značaj i relevantnost kvajnovskog naturalističkog pristupa za empirističku epistemologiju. (shrink)

In this paper I return to the mid-20th-century debate between Quine and Carnap on the status of metaphysics questions with an eye toward advancing contemporary debates about whether naturalists can coherently undertake substantive metaphysical inquiry. Following Huw Price, I take the debate between Quine and Carnap to hinge, in part, on whether human inquiry is functionally unified. However, unlike Price, I suggest that this question is not best understood as a question about the function(s) of descriptive discourse. This goes along (...) with rejecting a “linguistic conception” of the starting point of metaphysical inquiry, which, although shared by Quine and Carnap, Price gives us no good reason to think is mandatory for naturalists. I sketch two reasons naturalists have to reject a particular manifestation of this linguistic conception in Quine’s work—his criterion of ontological commitment. Finally, I show how these reasons can help us identify the grains of truth in some recent critiques of “mainstream metaphysics of mind.”. (shrink)

During the past few decades, a radical shift has occurred in how philosophers conceive of the relation between science and philosophy. A great number of analytic philosophers have adopted what is commonly called a ‘naturalistic’ approach, arguing that their inquiries ought to be in some sense continuous with science. Where early analytic philosophers often relied on a sharp distinction between science and philosophy—the former an empirical discipline concerned with fact, the latter an a priori discipline concerned with meaning—philosophers today largely (...) follow Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) in his seminal rejection of this distinction. -/- This book offers a comprehensive study of Quine’s naturalism. Building on Quine’s published corpus as well as thousands of unpublished letters, notes, lectures, papers, proposals, and annotations from the Quine archives, this book aims to reconstruct both the nature (chapters 2-4) and the development (chapter 5-7) of his naturalism. As such, this book aims to contribute to the rapidly developing historiography of analytic philosophy, and to provide a better, historically informed, understanding of what is philosophically at stake in the contemporary naturalistic turn. (shrink)

One of the objections against the thesis of underdetermination of theories by observations is that it is unintelligible. Any two empirically equivalent theories — so the argument goes—are in principle intertranslatable, hence cannot count as rivals in any non-trivial sense. Against that objection, this paper shows that empirically equivalent theories may contain theoretical sentences that are not intertranslatable. Examples are drawn from a related discussion about incommensurability that shows that theoretical non-intertranslatability is possible.

The book from which these sections are excerpted is concerned with the prospects for assimilating the study of human intelligence and its products to the natural sciences through the investigation of cognitive structures, understood as systems of rules and representations that can be regarded as “mental organs.” These mental structui′es serve as the vehicles for the exercise of various capacities. They develop in the mind on the basis of an innate endowment that permits the growth of rich and highly articulated (...) structures along an intrinsically determined course under the triggering and partially shaping effect of experience, which fixes parameters in an intricate system of predetermined form. It is argued that the mind is modular in character, with a diversity of cognitive structures, each with its specific properties arid principles. Knowledge of language, of the behavior of objects, and much else crucially involves these mental structures, and is thus not characterizable in terms of capacities, dispositions, or practical abilities, nor is it necessarily grounded in experience in the standard sense of this term.Various types of knowledge and modes of knowledge acquisition are discussed in these terms. Some of the properties of the language faculty are investigated. The basic cognitive relation is “knowing a grammar”; knowledge of language is derivative and, correspondingly, raises further problems. Language as commonly understood is not a unitary phenomenon but involves a number of interacting systems: the “computational” system of grammar, which provides the representations of sound and meaning that permit a rich range of expressive potential, is distinct from a conceptual system with its own properties; knowledge of language must be distinguished from knowledge of how to use a language; and the various systems that enter into the knowledge and use of language must be further analyzed into their specific subcomponents. (shrink)

Realism about the external, natural world is an overarching empirical hypothesis. The method of hypothetical realism rejects as an excessive concession to the skeptic these two assumptions of constructivist intuitionism: first, that everything real must be exhaustively inspectable; and second, that our beliefs are to be justified to the point of certainty. We prefer to say that nothing is ever known directly; that all of our contact with the world is mediated by thoughts, words, and percepts construed as signs having (...) referents distinct from themselves. We organize these signs into meaningful and possibly true hypotheses as we speculate--in practice, science and metaphysics--about a world we have not made. (shrink)

I argue that scientism in general is best understood as the thesis that the boundaries of the natural sciences should be expanded in order to include academic disciplines or realms of life that are widely considered not to belong to the realm of science. However, every adherent and critic of scientism should make clear which of the many varieties of scientism she adheres to or criticizes. In doing so, she should specify whether she is talking about (a) academic or universal (...) scientism, (b) reductive, methodological, epistemological, ontological, moral, or existential, scientism, (c) full or partial scientism, (d) strong or weak scientism, and (e) in the case of moral and existential scientism: replacement or illusion scientism. The strongest version of scientism one could defend is a conjunction of the following theses: strong full epistemological scientism, strong full ontological scientism, strong full Illusion-moral scientism, strong Illusion-existential scientism, and strong full reductive scientism. After a detailed discussion of each of the main varieties of scientism and their interrelations, the paper provides a conceptual map, consisting of two figures, which displays the main varieties of scientism and the relations that obtain between them, primarily, those of implication and mutual exclusion. (shrink)

The problem of philosophical skepticism relates to the difficulty involved in underwriting the claim that we know anything of spatio-temporal reality. It is often claimed, in fact, that proper philosophical scrutiny reveals quite the opposite from what common sense suggests. Knowledge of external reality is thought to be even quite obviously denied to us as a result of the alleged fact that we all fail to know that certain skeptical scenarios do not obtain. A skeptical scenario is one in which (...) we have neurological occurrences just like any normal situation in which we actually perceive spatio-temporal objects, but where we are deceived in some sense as a result of the manipulation of our brains from some outside source. In this work I attempt to address the problem of philosophical skepticism by claiming that most of us are able to come to know plenty about external reality, since we can come to realize that a certain philosophical theory of perception is correct. The theory I have in mind is what I call a non-cognitive theory of perception. According to this view, perceptual experience is defined by continuous, sensitive behavioral interaction with spatio-temporal objects of the appropriate size, shape, hardness, speed, etc. Knowing that this theory of perception is correct is equivalent to knowing that we know plenty about external reality. This is ultimately because by knowing that a non-cognitive theory of perception is true, we know that any skeptical scenario must fail to obtain. The structure of the work proceeds by first discussing the significance of the problem of philosophical skepticism in some detail. Chapter 1 lays out how the problem does indeed forcefully arise if it is conceded that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain. Chapter 2 develops the sort of view of our epistemological situation that falls out of accepting without qualification that the problem exists. Chapter 3 examines and criticizes certain popular responses to the skeptical problem. The main goal of these first three preliminary chapters is to indicate that once it is admitted that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain, the problem of philosophical skepticism forcefully presents itself. Chapter 4, however, attacks the idea that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain. In this chapter I argue that this idea is wedded to the position that a certain theory of perception is correct. The theory in question is what I call a conjunctive theory of veridical experience. According to this view, normal experience of spatio-temporal objects occurs when a subject has a certain perceptual experience, and that experience also happens to match up with and/or be satisfied by what is really the case. Only when a theory of this sort is assumed, I argue, is the claim that we fail to know that the skeptical scenarios fail to obtain found to be obvious. In chapter 5 I argue that, in fact, a non-cognitive theory, rather than a conjunctive theory, is the correct view to maintain. In the final chapter 6 I develop the epistemological position that falls out of accepting a non-cognitive theory. (shrink)

In this book, the words ‘science’ and ‘social science’ are used in their limited sense that refer to experience-based knowledge. This should not indicate that experience is being used in a positivistic sense. Rather, the important insights of all kinds of post-positivist views are embraced to give an extensive meaning to experience. However, the most important characteristic of experience and science that should never be excluded is its dependence on observation and observational evidence. Thus, when ‘science’ is used in combination (...) with ‘religion’, it should not be confused by religious knowledge. The latter might refer to, perhaps, a certain kind of knowledge that could be found in religious texts and might be different from other kinds of knowledge. However, when the phrase of ‘religious science’ is used, it refers to a scientific knowledge, even though because of its religious presuppositions it is called religious. And this relation between religion and science is exactly the point that is at issue in this book. On one hand, the issue of religious science raises challenges on the ground that the contemporary science has been explicitly non-religious or perhaps in some cases anti-religious. Objectivity of science is usually understood in a way that it does not permit to combine ‘science’ with ‘religion’. Thus, in the first step, the phrase of religious science is considered as nonsense. On the other hand, as far as religious people are concerned, the issue of religious science is enthusiastic. These people sometimes think that a real religion should include all scientific truths. Thus, facing the issue, they immediately verdict that there are or should be religious sciences. However, neither that strong challenge with the possibility of any religious science, nor this hot enthusiasm could be in congruence with the spirit of scientific endeavor. As far as social scientists are concerned, the possibility of religious science should not be rejected a priori. This possibility should not be necessarily considered as a threat for science, rather the plausibility of its being a chance for the development of science should also be taken into account. On the other hand, as far as the religious people are concerned, they should not necessarily consider the possibility of talking about religious sciences as a chance for spreading their religion, rather the plausibility of its being a threat for their purpose should also be considered. This is because entering of a religion into a job which is not relevant to it could be dangerous. Far from these two kinds of biases, it is attempted in this book to deal with the issue in a reflective manner. It seems that thinking about ‘religious science’ requires us to take three steps. In the first step, we need to think about the nature or characteristics of science. In the second step, we need to think about the nature or characteristics of religion. And finally, in the third step, it seem necessary to think about the combination of them. These three steps show the direction of the discussion in what follows. (shrink)

In this paper I distinguish two ways of using the expression ‘epistemological naturalism’. In one sense, naturalism amounts to a denial that epistemology should be understood as a kind of first philosophy providing the foundations for science from outside. In a second sense, naturalism holds that human knowledge is a natural phenomenon and that epistemology should be seen as a chapter of natural science. Moreover, naturalism in this second sense usually incorporates some additional specifications that build up a very restrictive (...) concept of science. Two different projects for naturalizing epistemology lie behind these two meanings of ‘naturalism’, and the two projects, although sometimes seen as complementary or even equivalent, are not necessarily so. After drawing this distinction, I set out the difficulties faced by those naturalistic stances that do not discriminate sharply enough or do not establish the appropriate hierarchical relationship between both projects. Finally, I argue for a conception of epistemology which is best described as a radical antilfoundntionnlism. This conception sticks to the requirements that follow from naturalism when understood in the first sense above, and takes the cluster of theses that give birth to the second as subsidiary and revisable. (shrink)

In this paper I examine a series of criticisms that have been levelled against Quine's naturalized epistemology, regarding its response to the problem of scepticism. Barry Stroud and Michael Williams, assuming that Quine wishes to refute scepticism, argue that Quine not only fails to undertake this refutation, but is also committed to theses (such as the inscrutability of reference and the underdetermination of theory by evidence) which imply versions of scepticism of their own. In Quine's defence, Roger Gibson argues that (...) Quine can succeed in showing sceptical doubts to be incoherent. But I contend that both parties of this dispute wrongly assume that Quine wishes to defeat the sceptic in a traditional way. Instead, Quine is happy to 'acquiesce' in scepticism about a certain kind of justification. No logical justification of our scientific beliefs is possible on his view. But Quine thinks that pragmatic justification is possible, and acknowledging that this is his view leads to the resolution of a number of interpretive quandaries. (shrink)

This paper argues that a naturalized epistemology of the kind presented by W.V. Quine preserves everything worthwhile in traditional epistemology. Arguments against Quinean naturalism by such writers as Laurence BonJour, Jaegwon Kim, Richard Rorty, Barry Stroud, and Donald Davidson are criticized. Contrary to what is sometimes assumed, Quinean naturalism does not reject a priori justification. The important point is that epistemology is contained in science. There is no ‘first philosophy’, and, in particular, epistemology is not a normative discipline. Nevertheless, there (...) is a sense in which Quinean naturalism provides an answer to Cartesian scepticism. (shrink)