Things and Their Place in Theories Our talk of external things, our very notion of things, is just a conceptual apparatus that helps us to foresee and ...

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)

I propose an approach to naturalized philosophy of science that takes the social nature of scientific practice seriously. I criticize several prominent naturalistic approaches for adopting "cognitive individualism", which limits the study of science to an examination of the internal psychological mechanisms of scientists. I argue that this limits the explanatory capacity of these approaches. I then propose a three-level model of the social nature of scientific practice, and use the model to defend the claim that scientific knowledge is socially (...) produced. (shrink)

explores the interaction between psychology and epistemology and addresses empirical questions about how we should arrive at our beliefs, and whether the processes by which we arrive at our beliefs are the ones by which we ought to arrive at our beliefs.

This article reviews the transition between post-Fregean anti-naturalistic epistemology and contemporary naturalistic epistemologies. It traces the revival of naturalism to Quine’s critique of the "a priori", and Kuhn’s defense of historicism, and use the arguments of Quine and Kuhn to identify a position, "traditional naturalism", that combines naturalistic themes with the claim that epistemology is a normative enterprise. Pleas for more radical versions of naturalism are articulated, and briefly confronted.

For 30 years, Quine, a dominant figure in logical theory and philosophy of logic, has combined insights in methodology, language, epistemology, and ontology, to blur the boundaries of speculative metaphysics and natural sciences. This revised text contains two new essays with replies from Quine.

In this book, Michael Arbib, a researcher in artificial intelligence and brain theory, joins forces with Mary Hesse, a philosopher of science, to present an integrated account of how humans 'construct' reality through interaction with the social and physical world around them. The book is a major expansion of the Gifford Lectures delivered by the authors at the University of Edinburgh in the autumn of 1983. The authors reconcile a theory of the individual's construction of reality as a network of (...) schemas 'in the head' with an account of the social construction of language, science, ideology and religion to provide an integrated schema-theoretic view of human knowledge. The authors still find scope for lively debate, particularly in their discussion of free will and of the reality of God. The book integrates an accessible exposition of background information with a cumulative marshalling of evidence to address fundamental questions concerning human action in the world and the nature of ultimate reality. (shrink)

A central topic of the latest research in the philosophy of science is the question of what kind of relationship there is between the cognitive and social factors which underlie scientific knowledge. At present, this problem has manifested itself in a heated and still unfinished controversy between the proponents of artificial intelligence research and the sociologists of knowledge. By resolving the antagonism of these two positions, the book aims at developing a modular approach to an integrated philosophy of science which (...) can handle the interaction between cognitive and social factors in a way which differs considerably from all current proposals. (shrink)

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.

Continuity lies at the heart of the recent naturalistic turn in epistemology. Naturalists are united by a shared commitment to the continuity of science and epistemology, and tend to advocate one or more species of continuity: contextual, semantic, epistemological methodological, metaphysical, and axiological. Naturalists divide, however, over the interpretation and scope of this continuity. The naturalism of Goldman, Kim and Sosa is criticised for leaving meta-epistemology methodologically and epistemologically autonomous from science. A more plausible approach naturalizes epistemology 'all the way (...) up', i.e., including meta-epistemology itself. (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)

Was für eine Wissenschaft ist die gegenwärtige theoretische Linguistik? Diese Frage wird beantwortet durch die Erarbeitung eines geeigneten metawissenschaftlichen Untersuchungsrahmens. Ausgehend von der Modularitätshypothese der theoretischen Linguistik besteht der Grundgedanke der Untersuchung darin, daß nicht nur das Sprachverhalten, sondern auch die wissenschaftliche Erkenntnis durch die für sie spezifische Interaktion eigenständiger Module des men schlichen Verhaltens determiniert wird. Dementsprechend wird allg emeinen Charakteristika der Erkenntnis durch die Ermittlung unive rseller Prinzipien Rechnung getragen. Durch die Neuthematisierung des Verhältnisses zwischen konzeptuellen und sozialen (...) Aspekten d er Erkenntnis werden Lösungsmöglichkeiten nahegelegt. (shrink)