Naturalized epistemology - Wikipedia Naturalized epistemology From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Part of a series on Epistemology Category Index Outline Core concepts Belief Justification Knowledge Truth Distinctions A priori vs. A posteriori Analytic vs. Synthetic Schools of thought Empiricism Naturalism Pragmatism Rationalism Relativism Skepticism Topics and views Certainty Coherentism Contextualism Dogmatism Experience Fallibilism Foundationalism Induction Infallibilism Infinitism Rationality Reason Solipsism Specialized domains of inquiry Evolutionary epistemology Feminist epistemology Formal epistemology Metaepistemology Social epistemology Notable epistemologists René Descartes Sextus Empiricus Edmund Gettier David Hume Immanuel Kant W. V. O. Quine more... Related fields Epistemic logic Philosophy of mind Philosophy of perception Philosophy of science Probability v t e Naturalized epistemology (a term coined by W. V. O. Quine) is a collection of philosophic views concerned with the theory of knowledge that emphasize the role of natural scientific methods. This shared emphasis on scientific methods of studying knowledge shifts focus to the empirical processes of knowledge acquisition and away from many traditional philosophical questions. There are noteworthy distinctions within naturalized epistemology. Replacement naturalism maintains that traditional epistemology should be abandoned and replaced with the methodologies of the natural sciences. The general thesis of cooperative naturalism is that traditional epistemology can benefit in its inquiry by using the knowledge we have gained from the cognitive sciences. Substantive naturalism focuses on an asserted equality of facts of knowledge and natural facts. Objections to naturalized epistemology have targeted features of the general project as well as characteristics of specific versions. Some objectors suggest that natural scientific knowledge cannot be circularly grounded by the knowledge obtained through cognitive science, which is itself a natural science. This objection from circularity has been aimed specifically at strict replacement naturalism. There are similar challenges to substance naturalism that maintain that the substance naturalists' thesis that all facts of knowledge are natural facts is not only circular but fails to accommodate certain facts. Several other objectors have found fault in the inability of naturalized methods to adequately address questions about what value forms of potential knowledge have or lack. Contents 1 Forms of naturalism 1.1 Replacement naturalism 1.2 Cooperative naturalism 1.3 Substantive naturalism 2 Criticism 3 References 4 Bibliography 5 External links Forms of naturalism[edit] Replacement naturalism[edit] W. V. O. Quine's version of naturalized epistemology considers reasons for serious doubt about the fruitfulness of traditional philosophic study of scientific knowledge.[1] These concerns are raised in light of the long attested incapacity of philosophers to find a satisfactory answer to the problems of radical scepticism, more particularly, to David Hume's criticism of induction. But also, because of the contemporaneous attempts and failures to reduce mathematics to pure logic by those in or philosophically sympathetic to The Vienna Circle. He concludes that studies of scientific knowledge concerned with meaning or truth fail to achieve the Cartesian goal of certainty. The failures in the reduction of mathematics to pure logic imply that scientific knowledge can at best be defined with the aid of less certain set-theoretic notions. Even if set theory's lacking the certainty of pure logic is deemed acceptable, the usefulness of constructing an encoding of scientific knowledge as logic and set theory is undermined by the inability to construct a useful translation from logic and set-theory back to scientific knowledge. If no translation between scientific knowledge and the logical structures can be constructed that works both ways, then the properties of the purely logical and set-theoretic constructions do not usefully inform understanding of scientific knowledge.[1] On Quine's account, attempts to pursue the traditional project of finding the meanings and truths of science philosophically have failed on their own terms and failed to offer any advantage over the more direct methods of psychology. Quine rejects the analytic-synthetic distinction and emphasizes the holistic nature of our beliefs. Since traditional philosophic analysis of knowledge fails, those wishing to study knowledge ought to employ natural scientific methods. Scientific study of knowledge differs from philosophic study by focusing on how humans acquire knowledge rather than speculative analysis of knowledge.[1] According to Quine, this appeal to science to ground the project of studying knowledge, which itself underlies science, should not be dismissed for its circularity since it is the best option available after ruling out traditional philosophic methods for their more serious flaws. This identification and tolerance of circularity is reflected elsewhere in Quine's works.[2] Cooperative naturalism[edit] Cooperative naturalism is a version of naturalized epistemology which states that while there are evaluative questions to pursue, the empirical results from psychology concerning how individuals actually think and reason are essential and useful for making progress in these evaluative questions. This form of naturalism says that our psychological and biological limitations and abilities are relevant to the study of human knowledge. Empirical work is relevant to epistemology but only if epistemology is itself as broad as the study of human knowledge.[3] Substantive naturalism[edit] Substantive naturalism is a form of naturalized epistemology that emphasizes how all epistemic facts are natural facts. Natural facts can be based on two main ideas. The first is that all natural facts include all facts that science would verify. The second is to provide a list of examples that consists of natural items. This will help in deducing what else can be included.[3] Criticism[edit] Quine articulates the problem of circularity inherent in naturalized epistemology when it is treated as a replacement for traditional epistemology.[1] If the goal of traditional epistemology is to validate or to provide the foundation for the natural sciences, naturalized epistemology would be tasked with validating the natural sciences by means of those very sciences. That is, an empirical investigation into the criteria which are used to scientifically evaluate evidence must presuppose those very same criteria.[4] However, Quine points out that these thoughts of validation are merely a byproduct of traditional epistemology.[1] Instead, the naturalized epistemologist should only be concerned with understanding the link between observation and science even if that understanding relies on the very science under investigation.[1] In order to understand the link between observation and science, Quine's naturalized epistemology must be able to identify and describe the process by which scientific knowledge is acquired. One form of this investigation is reliabilism which requires that a belief be the product of some reliable method if it is to be considered knowledge. Since naturalized epistemology relies on empirical evidence, all epistemic facts which comprise this reliable method must be reducible to natural facts.[3] That is, all facts related to the process of understanding must be expressible in terms of natural facts. If this is not true, i.e. there are facts which cannot be expressed as natural facts, science would have no means of investigating them. In this vein, Roderick Chisholm argues that there are epistemic principles (or facts) which are necessary to knowledge acquisition, but may not be, themselves, natural facts.[3] If Chisholm is correct, naturalized epistemology would be unable to account for these epistemic principles and, as a result, would be unable to wholly describe the process by which knowledge is obtained. Beyond Quine's own concerns and potential discrepancies between epistemic and natural facts, Hilary Putnam argues that the replacement of traditional epistemology with naturalized epistemology necessitates the elimination of the normative.[5] But without the normative, there is no "justification, rational acceptability [nor] warranted assertibility". Ultimately, there is no "true" since any method for arriving at the truth was abandoned with the normative. All notions which would explain truth are only intelligible when the normative is presupposed. Moreover, for there to be "thinkers", there "must be some kind of truth"; otherwise, "our thoughts aren't really about anything [,...] there is no sense in which any thought is right or wrong".[5] Without the normative to dictate how one should proceed or which methods should be employed, naturalized epistemology cannot determine the "right" criteria by which empirical evidence should be evaluated.[4] But these are precisely the issues which traditional epistemology has been tasked with. If naturalized epistemology does not provide the means for addressing these issues, it cannot succeed as a replacement to traditional epistemology. Jaegwon Kim, another critic of naturalized epistemology, further articulates the difficulty of removing the normative component. He notes that modern epistemology has been dominated by the concepts of justification and reliability.[6] Kim explains that epistemology and knowledge are nearly eliminated in their common sense meanings without normative concepts such as these. These concepts are meant to engender the question "What conditions must a belief meet if we are justified in accepting it as true?". That is to say, what are the necessary criteria by which a particular belief can be declared as "true" (or, should it fail to meet these criteria, can we rightly infer its falsity)? This notion of truth rests solely on the conception and application of the criteria which are set forth in traditional and modern theories of epistemology. Kim adds to this claim by explaining how the idea of "justification" is the only notion (among "belief" and "truth") which is the defining characteristic of an epistemological study. To remove this aspect is to alter the very meaning and goal of epistemology, whereby we are no longer discussing the study and acquisition of knowledge. Justification is what makes knowledge valuable and normative; without it what can rightly be said to be true or false? We are left with only descriptions of the processes by which we arrive at a belief. Kim realizes that Quine is moving epistemology into the realm of psychology, where Quine’s main interest is based on the sensory input–output relationship of an individual. This account can never establish an affirmable statement which can lead us to truth, since all statements without the normative are purely descriptive (which can never amount to knowledge). The vulgar allowance of any statement without discrimination as scientifically valid, though not true, makes Quine’s theory difficult to accept under any epistemic theory which requires truth as the object of knowledge. As a result of these objections and others like them, most, including Quine in his later writings, have agreed that naturalized epistemology as a replacement may be too strong of a view.[3] However, these objections have helped shape rather than completely eliminate naturalized epistemology. One product of these objections is cooperative naturalism which holds that empirical results are essential and useful to epistemology. That is, while traditional epistemology cannot be eliminated, neither can it succeed in its investigation of knowledge without empirical results from the natural sciences. In any case, Quinean Replacement Naturalism finds relatively few supporters.[3] References[edit] ^ a b c d e f Quine, Willard (2004). "Epistemology Naturalized". In E. Sosa & J. Kim (ed.). Epistemology: An Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 292–300. ISBN 0-631-19724-9. ^ Quine, Willard (1994). "Two Dogmas of Empiricism". From a Logical Point of View. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. pp. 20–46. ISBN 0-674-32351-3. ^ a b c d e f Feldman, Richard. "Naturalized Epistemology". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved September 31, 2009. Check date values in: |access-date= (help) ^ a b Giere, Ronald (1985). "Philosophy of Science Naturalized". Philosophy of Science. 52 (3): 331–356. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.411.1923. doi:10.1086/289255. ^ a b Putnam, Hilary (2004). "Why Reason Can't Be Naturalized". In E. Sosa & J. Kim (ed.). Epistemology: An Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 314–324. ISBN 0-631-19724-9. ^ Kim, Jaegwon (2004). "What is 'Naturalized Epistemology'?". In E. Sosa & J. Kim (ed.). Epistemology: An Anthology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 301–313. ISBN 0-631-19724-9. Bibliography[edit] Almeder, Robert (1998) Harmless Naturalism: The Limits of Science and the Nature of Philosophy, Peru, Illinois: Open Court. BonJour, Laurence (1994) "Against Naturalized Epistemology," Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XIX: 283-300. Chisholm, Roderick (1966)Theory of Knowledge, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Chisholm, Roderick (1982) The Foundations of Knowing, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Chisholm, Roderick (1989)Theory of Knowledge, 3rd ed., Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Feldman, Richard (1999), "Methodological Naturalism in Epistemology," in The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, edited by John Greco and Ernest Sosa, Malden, Ma: Blackwell, pp. 170–186. Foley, Richard (1994) "Quine and Naturalized Epistemology," Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XIX: 243-260. Fumerton, Richard (1994) "Skepticism and Naturalistic Epistemology," Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XIX: 321-340. Fumerton, Richard (1995) Metaepistemology and Skepticism, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Gibbard, Allan (1990) Wise Feelings, Apt Choices, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Goldman, Alvin (1979) "What is Justified Belief?," in G. Pappas, ed., Justification and Knowledge: New Studies in Epistemology, Dordrecht, Reidel: 1-23. Goldman, Alvin (1992), Liaisons: Philosophy Meets the Cognitive and Social Sciences, Cambridge: MIT Press. Haack, Susan (1993) Evidence and Inquiry: Towards Reconstruction in Epistemology, Oxford: Blackwell. Harman, Gilbert (1977) Thought, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Kim, Jaegwon (1988) "What is Naturalized Epistemology?" Philosophical Perspectives 2 edited by James E. Tomberlin, Asascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Co: 381-406. Kitcher, Philip (1992) "The Naturalists Return," Philosophical Review, 101: 53-114. Kornblith, Hilary (1994) Naturalizing Epistemology 2nd Edition, Cambridge: MIT Press. Kornblith, Hilary (1999) "In Defense of a Naturalized Epistemology" in The Blackwell Guide to Epistemology, edited by John Greco and Ernest Sosa, Malden, Ma: Blackwell, pp. 158–169. Kornblith, Hilary (1988) "How Internal Can You Get?," Synthese, 74: 313-327. Lehrer, Keith (1997) Self-Trust: A study of Reason, Knowledge and Autonomy, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lycan, William (1988) Judgement and Justification, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mafffie, James (1990) "Recent Work on Naturalizing Epistemology," American Philosophical Quarterly 27: 281-293. Pollock, John (1986) Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, Totawa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield. Quine, W.V.O. (1969) Ontological Relativity and Other Essays, New York: Columbia University Press. Quine, W.V.O. (1990) "Norms and Aims" in The Pursuit of Truth, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Steup, Matthias, An Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology, Prentice-Hall, 1996. Stich, Stephen and Richard Nisbett (1980), "Justification and the Psychology of Human Reasoning," Philosophy of Science 47: 188-202. Stich, Stephen (1990) The Fragmentation of Reason, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Strawson, Peter (1952) Introduction to Logical Theory, New York: Wiley. van Cleve, James (1985) "Epistemic Supervenience and the Circle of Belief" Monist 68: 90-104. External links[edit] Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). "Naturalism in Epistemology". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Naturalized epistemology at PhilPapers Naturalized epistemology at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project "Naturalized epistemology". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Epistemology The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy ISBN 0-14-051250-0 v t e Epistemology Epistemologists Thomas Aquinas Augustine of Hippo William Alston Robert Audi A. J. Ayer George Berkeley Laurence BonJour Keith DeRose René Descartes John Dewey Fred Dretske Edmund Gettier Alvin Goldman Nelson Goodman Paul Grice Anil Gupta Susan Haack David Hume Immanuel Kant Søren Kierkegaard Peter Klein Saul Kripke Hilary Kornblith David Lewis John Locke G. E. Moore John McDowell Robert Nozick Alvin Plantinga Plato Duncan Pritchard James Pryor Hilary Putnam W. V. O. Quine Thomas Reid Bertrand Russell Gilbert Ryle Wilfrid Sellars Susanna Siegel Ernest Sosa P. F. Strawson Baruch Spinoza Timothy Williamson Ludwig Wittgenstein Nicholas Wolterstorff Vienna Circle more... Theories Coherentism Constructivism Contextualism Empiricism Evolutionary epistemology Fallibilism Feminist epistemology Fideism Foundationalism Holism Infinitism Innatism Naïve realism Naturalized epistemology Phenomenalism Positivism Rationalism Reductionism Reliabilism Representational realism Skepticism Transcendental idealism Concepts A priori knowledge A posteriori knowledge Analysis Analytic–synthetic distinction Belief Common sense Descriptive knowledge Exploratory thought Gettier problem Induction Internalism and externalism Justification Knowledge Objectivity Privileged access Problem of induction Problem of other minds Perception Procedural knowledge Proposition Regress argument Simplicity Speculative reason Truth more... Related articles Outline of epistemology Faith and rationality Formal epistemology Meta-epistemology Philosophy of perception Philosophy of science Social epistemology Category Task Force Stubs Discussion v t e Philosophy Branches Traditional Metaphysics Epistemology Logic Ethics Aesthetics Philosophy of... Action Color Culture Design Music Film Cosmology Education Environment Geography Happiness History Human nature Humor Feminism Language Law Life Literature Mathematics Medicine Healthcare Psychiatry Mind Pain Psychology Perception Philosophy Religion Science Physics Chemistry Biology Sexuality Social science Business Culture Economics Politics Society Space and time Sport Technology Artificial intelligence Computer science Engineering Information War Schools of thought By era Ancient Western Medieval Renaissance Early modern Modern Contemporary Ancient Chinese Agriculturalism Confucianism Legalism Logicians Mohism Chinese naturalism Neotaoism Taoism Yangism Chan Greco-Roman Aristotelianism Atomism Cynicism Cyrenaics Eleatics Eretrian school Epicureanism Hermeneutics Ionian Ephesian Milesian Megarian school Neoplatonism Peripatetic Platonism Pluralism Presocratic Pyrrhonism Pythagoreanism Neopythagoreanism Sophistic Stoicism Indian Hindu Samkhya Nyaya Vaisheshika Yoga Mīmāṃsā Ājīvika Ajñana Cārvāka Jain Anekantavada Syādvāda Buddhist Śūnyatā Madhyamaka Yogacara Sautrāntika Svatantrika Persian Mazdakism Mithraism Zoroastrianism Zurvanism Medieval European Christian Augustinianism Scholasticism Thomism Scotism Occamism Renaissance humanism East Asian Korean Confucianism Edo neo-Confucianism Neo-Confucianism Indian Vedanta Acintya bheda abheda Advaita Bhedabheda Dvaita Nimbarka Sampradaya Shuddhadvaita Vishishtadvaita Navya-Nyāya Islamic Averroism Avicennism Illuminationism ʿIlm al-Kalām Sufi Jewish Judeo-Islamic Modern People Cartesianism Kantianism Neo-Kantianism Hegelianism Marxism Spinozism 0 Anarchism Classical Realism Liberalism Collectivism Conservatism Determinism Dualism Empiricism Existentialism Foundationalism Historicism Holism Humanism Anti- Idealism Absolute British German Objective Subjective Transcendental Individualism Kokugaku Materialism Modernism Monism Naturalism Natural law Nihilism New Confucianism Neo-scholasticism Pragmatism Phenomenology Positivism Reductionism Rationalism Social contract Socialism Transcendentalism Utilitarianism Contemporary Analytic Applied ethics Analytic feminism Analytical Marxism Communitarianism Consequentialism Critical rationalism Experimental philosophy Falsificationism Foundationalism / Coherentism Internalism and externalism Logical positivism Legal positivism Normative ethics Meta-ethics Moral realism Quinean naturalism Ordinary language philosophy Postanalytic philosophy Quietism Rawlsian Reformed epistemology Systemics Scientism Scientific realism Scientific skepticism Transactionalism Contemporary utilitarianism Vienna Circle Wittgensteinian Continental Critical theory Deconstruction Existentialism Feminist Frankfurt School New Historicism Hermeneutics Neo-Marxism Phenomenology Posthumanism Postmodernism Post-structuralism Social constructionism Structuralism Western Marxism Other Kyoto School Objectivism Postcritique Russian cosmism more... Positions Aesthetics Formalism Institutionalism Aesthetic response Ethics Consequentialism Deontology Virtue Free will Compatibilism Determinism Hard Incompatibilism Hard Libertarianism Metaphysics Atomism Dualism Idealism Monism Naturalism Realism Epistemology Empiricism Fideism Naturalism Particularism Rationalism Skepticism Solipsism Mind Behaviorism Emergentism Eliminativism Epiphenomenalism Functionalism Objectivism Subjectivism Normativity Absolutism Particularism Relativism Nihilism Skepticism Universalism Ontology Action Event Process Reality Anti-realism Conceptualism Idealism Materialism Naturalism Nominalism Physicalism Realism By region Related lists Miscellaneous By region African Ethiopian Amerindian Aztec Eastern Chinese Egyptian Indian Indonesian Iranian Japanese Korean Taiwanese Pakistani Vietnamese Middle Eastern Western American Australian British Czech Danish French German Greek Italian Polish Romanian Russian Slovene Spanish Turkish Lists Outline Index Years Problems Schools Glossary Philosophers Movements Publications Miscellaneous Natural law Sage Theoretical philosophy / Practical philosophy Women in philosophy Portal Category Book Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Naturalized_epistemology&oldid=996978989" Categories: Epistemological theories Naturalism (philosophy) Willard Van Orman Quine Hidden categories: CS1 errors: dates Articles with Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy links Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version Languages العربية فارسی Edit links This page was last edited on 29 December 2020, at 13:06 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Mobile view Developers Statistics Cookie statement