Sellars Sec 32; Siegel —; Lehrer — Evidence as it relates to justification is what concerns the epistemologist. Justification is the central epistemic notion—it makes up the difference between mere true belief and knowledge modulo Gettier , and is the locus of specifically epistemic normativity.
For epistemology to go out of the business of justification is for it to go out of business. Kim [ 8 ]. But it seems that nothing in epistemology as Quine conceives of it affords us the resources for evaluating such arguments:.
So long as the naturalists mean to be showing their audience in spoken word and in print that their doctrines are correct, this question will be an urgent one. But how are we supposed to go about trying to answer it? It is hard to see what we can do except evaluate these arguments by the light of the very sorts of epistemic intuitions which the naturalists are so eager to disparage.
Kaplan ; cf. Almeder — Various responses to the preceding objections have been suggested. Addressing the fourth and fifth will carry us beyond Quine and into the heart of current disagreements with, and within, NE. Rather, they have sought to find an alternative to what was seen as a stagnating or otherwise unsatisfactory traditional approach. Goldman The trouble with many philosophical treatments of knowledge is that they are inspired by Cartesian-like conceptions of justification or vindication.
There is a consequent tendency to overintellectualize or overrationalize the notion of knowledge. A fundamental facet of animate life, both human and infra-human, is telling things apart, distinguishing predator from prey, for example, or a protective habitat from a threatening one. The concept of knowledge has its roots in this kind of cognitive activity. Other naturalistic treatments of knowledge were similarly motivated.
The result is that the theorist is left having to reject some very clear cases of knowledge—in children, non-human animals, and unreflective adults—as not genuine knowledge at all Dretske His own account of knowledge,. The same kind of broad methodological concerns are evident as well in naturalistic accounts of justification warrant, etc.
Also worth noting here are a pair of more strictly meta-epistemological desiderata Goldman announces at the start of the same paper.
This recalls, of course, meta-epistemic NE Section 1. The short answer is this: we believe in the supervenience of epistemic properties on naturalistic ones, and more generally, in the supervenience of all valuational and normative properties on naturalistic conditions…. That [a given belief] is a justified belief cannot be a brute fundamental fact unrelated to the kind of belief it is.
There must be a reason for it, and this reason must be grounded in the factual descriptive properties of that particular belief. Something like this, I think, is what we believe. As others have observed, however, it is doubtful that the question of whether epistemic properties at least supervene upon natural properties—hence, meta-epistemic NE, as written—sheds much light on the NE-vs-TE controversy see Foley —; Feldman Section 4; Maffie a: ; Kappel For virtually everyone on both sides of that debate can be seen as agreeing that epistemic properties supervene.
The notable exception here is Lehrer For example, Chisholm, who is hardly thought to be an advocate of NE, is explicit in holding that epistemic facts supervene on non-epistemic ones 42—43; cf.
And Feldman argues that evidentialism—which is usually regarded as an instance of TE, not NE—respects supervenience as well. So we do not yet have a plausible candidate, in the vicinity of meta-epistemic NE, of something on which proponents of TE and NE might clearly divide.
He writes:. This is not the kind of principle I seek; for, even if it is correct, it leaves unexplained why a person who senses redly and believes that he does, believes this justifiably. Further, Feldman continues, something similar is true of traditionalists more generally:. In addition to facts about particular people being justified in believing particular propositions, [traditionalists] are committed to the existence of epistemic facts about what beliefs are supported by a particular body of evidence.
It remains unclear whether these are natural facts. Traditionalists often regard these facts as necessary truths, and it is their necessity that enables evidentialists to endorse the supervenience thesis.
Feldman Section 4. Of course, opponents of NE may contest this claim and hold that there just are brute epistemic principles and sui generis epistemic properties—as Chisholm, Lehrer, and perhaps many other traditionalists believe Fumerton, e.
And, as Feldman Section 4 notes, the disagreement here appears to be over what is natural, as opposed to over whether extra-natural facts exist. In any case, it should now be clear that current naturalists are not directly inspired by the failure of specifically Cartesian epistemology.
However, such scruples against circularity have little point once we have stopped dreaming of deducing science from observations. Further, there is no guarantee anyway that a given method will vindicate itself—a method may generate evidence that undermines its own reliability ibid. Finally, just when if ever circularity is epistemically bad, and why, is a matter of some controversy.
For general discussion and references, see Lammenranta n. Further, Quine claims, in pointing out that skeptical doubts are scientific doubts, he did not take himself to be refuting the skeptic or subjecting skepticism to a reductio More generally, questions might be raised about the underlying assumption that responding to the skeptic in such a way as to not beg any questions is an achievable end to begin with, and so whether it is something that deserves as much attention as it has traditionally been afforded.
Here, proponents of NE diverge somewhat. Dretske , is more conciliatory, offering an explanation that grants certain skeptical claims their power, even correctness, while defending our knowledge nonetheless. And both Goldman 39—41, 55—57; and Pollock 1—7 take it to be a task of epistemology to address skepticism—even if our goal therein is to understand and learn from skepticism rather than to refute it, and even if the topic deserves less attention than it has historically received.
As we saw above, it looks as though handing epistemology off to psychology replacement NE makes epistemology a purely descriptive enterprise hence, yields eliminative NE. Certainly, Quine is hardly friendly to epistemology as standardly practiced. Nonetheless, as recent commentators have pointed out see, e. Naturalization of epistemology does not jettison the normative and settle for the indiscriminate description of ongoing procedures.
For me normative epistemology is a branch of engineering. It is the technology of truth-seeking, or, in a more cautiously epistemological term, prediction. Like any technology, it makes free use of whatever scientific findings may suit its purpose. It draws upon experimental psychology in exposing perceptual illusions, and upon cognitive psychology in scouting wishful thinking.
It draws upon neurology and physics, in a general way, in discounting testimony from occult or parapsychological sources. There is no question here of ultimate value, as in morals; it is a matter of efficacy for an ulterior end, truth or prediction.
The normative here, as elsewhere in engineering, becomes descriptive when the terminal parameter is expressed. Quine — For Quine, then, epistemic normativity is simply a matter of instrumental efficacy towards the relevant end—viz. He continues:. The most notable norm of naturalized epistemology actually coincides with that of traditional epistemology. It is simply the watchword of empiricism: nihil in mente quod non prius in sensu. This is a prime specimen of naturalized epistemology, for it is a finding of natural science itself, however fallible, that our information about the world comes only through the impact of our sensory receptors.
And still the point is normative, warning us against telepaths and soothsayers. Quine And yet, one might see that response as inviting once again the charge of self-defeat. For example, one might wonder why it is truth , or prediction —rather than pleasure, say, or monetary gain—that is the epistemic end.
Is that a result of science, discovered a posteriori compare Foley ? A friend of TE is likely to see it, rather, as a conceptual truth that is knowable, intuitively, a priori. The present worry could be developed along other lines—e. This would take us back to worries about circularity. Science for Quine includes humble, everyday common sense thinking, after all.
Finally, given his rejection of analyticity, his consequent rejection of the a priori , [ 15 ] and his holism about both meaning and confirmation, it is quite unclear how Quine could maintain any hard and fast distinction between philosophy and science Gregory For these reasons, it is unclear whether the entirety of traditional philosophical methods per se would—or could—be excluded from a respectable Quinean epistemology. Where we are left, then, is needing a way of understanding how, within the constraints of NE, truth or prediction comes to be fixed as the epistemic end, such that the normativity objection can be fully met.
More generally, we need some respectable naturalistic version of traditional philosophical methods reflecting on cases, consulting our intuitions, and so on , or of alternative methods closely approximating them. Both of these matters—the ability of NE to account for epistemic normativity, and to accommodate or find a suitable replacement for the traditional philosophical methodology that some see as indispensable to epistemological theorizing—are at the center of current debate both about, and within, NE.
Over the next two sections we consider two prominent means of addressing these matters—those offered by Hilary Kornblith and by Alvin Goldman—and the challenges that each faces. Unlike Quine, Kornblith retains knowledge as a central epistemological notion. However, his position departs dramatically from TE in how it understands the nature of epistemological investigation.
Here, in both its proper target and its methods, epistemology is held not to be as TE and its practitioners portray them. As to the first, recall Section 1. See, for instance, the various papers in the aforementioned Roth and Galis volume.
Against this, it is suggested that the concept of knowledge is of little if any theoretical interest; it is no more the proper target of epistemological theory than the concept of aluminum is a worthy target of inquiry for one trying to understand various metals.
Likely, Kornblith says, our concept of knowledge is defective in various ways anyway. For example, in spite of its now near-universal rejection among epistemologists, the idea that knowledge required certainty enjoyed the favor of many, and is arguably still attractive among many non-philosophers. As to method, the epistemologist should proceed as would our imagined metallurgist: we begin by examining apparently clear cases of knowledge, and look to find what they have in common. Part of what happens here, very likely, is that we will reclassify some of these examples along the way.
What emerges, however, is a picture of the true nature of knowledge. Specifically, and as is evident in the work of cognitive ethologists in particular—that is, those whose job it is to study intelligent animal behavior—what emerges is an essentially reliabilist picture, in which knowledge consists in.
Kornblith It has a particular nature, and a particular causal-explanatory role in our general understanding of the life and success of certain types of biological organisms. In better understanding that place, and through an empirical investigation of.
While epistemology thus has no distinctive method , there is a sense, Kornblith thinks, in which it retains its autonomy:. Corporate Social Responsiblity. Investor Relations. Review a Brill Book. Reference Works. Primary source collections. Open Access Content. Contact us. Sales contacts. Publishing contacts.
Social Media Overview. Terms and Conditions. Privacy Statement. Login to my Brill account Create Brill Account. What Is Naturalized Epistemology? Author: Chienkuo Mi. Login via Institution. To remain compatible with themselves, the naturalists should have conceded that the problem of justification is illegitimate or incoherent.
The fact that they did not I take as additional evidence to support my claim that the traditional questions of epistemology are indispensable: they impose themselves and are, thus, hard to eliminate. When Plato tried to distinguish in "The Theatetus" between mere belief and knowledge, as an attempt to answer the skeptical doubts concerning the possibility of our knowledge of the external world , he has created what has become known throughout the history of philosophy as "epistemology" and what has since then, become a distinct province of inquiry whose main concern is determining the nature, the scope, the sources and limits of human knowledge.
These problems, which are known as the traditional problems are to be determined, according to the traditional approach to epistemology, as exemplified throughout the history of epistemology, by using a priori methods such as conceptual analysis, not by any kind of empirical investigation. Such view of epistemology was rejected, partially or wholly in different ways and for various reasons by the recent trend known.
The aim of this paper is to raise two points against two versions of naturalized epistemology; the first is that epistemology can be restricted to doing science, as held by Quine who is cited to having held the strong version of naturalized epistemology, 2 the second is that justification can be given a naturalistic account, as held by A. Goldman and others, from which I conclude that traditional epistemology survives the attempt to naturalize.
In any attempt to defend or refute naturalized epistemology, no one can ignore Quine as he is considered a staunch advocate of naturalized epistemology. It studies a natural phenomenon, viz. This human subject is accorded a certain experimentally controlled input-certain patterns of irradiation in assorted frequencies, for instance-and in the fullness of time the subject delivers as output a description of the three dimensional external world and its history.
Such a study could still include, even, something like the old rational reconstruction, to whatever degree such reconstruction is practicable; For imaginative constructions can afford hints of actual psychological processes, in much the way that mechanical simulations can. But a conspicuous difference between old epistemology and the epistemological enterprise in this new psychological setting is that we can now make free use of empirical psychology.
The old epistemology aspired to contain, in a sense, natural science; it would construct it somehow from sense data.
Epistemology in its new setting, conversely, is contained in natural science, as a chapter of psychology. But the old containment remains valid too, in its way. We are studying how the human subject of our study posits bodies and projects this physics from his data, and we appreciate that our position in the world is just like his.
Our very epistemological enterprise, therefore, and the psychology wherein it is a component chapter, and the whole of natural science wherein psychology is a component book-all this is our own construction or projection from stimulations like those we were meting out to our epistemological subject.
There is thus reciprocal containment, though containment in different senses, epistemology in natural science and natural science in epistemology". It implies at least a eliminating traditional epistemology as the distinct province of inquiry whose concern is the nature, the limit and the sources of knowledge in favor of science or psychology.
By doing psychology; i. Epistemology is to psychology as alchemy to chemistry" 6. Quine claims that, having encouragement in Darwin, nature has endowed us with a predisposition for believing truths, and that we arrive at beliefs in just the way we ought to. What we need is only to discover the processes by which we actually arrive at beliefs, because in this way we discover at the same time the processes by which we ought to arrive at beliefs.
Then the epistemological enterprise will be replaced by empirical psychology. I can put my argument as follows:. If nature, as Quine says, endows us with a predisposition for believing truths, and that we actually arrive at our beliefs by the same processes by which we ought to, then what is the merit for psychology?
Why do we need to discover our processes? If we guarantee that our beliefs are true, what do we need psychology, that helps in discovering the beliefs-generating processes, for? Epistemology would not be replaced by empirical psychology, but would be totally eliminated. They are, at least, assumed in every attempt to construct an epistemology:. This is a historical fact that can be easily shown by just reading the history of philosophy.
I argue then with Bradie that Sir Karl Popper was wrong in asserting, in the logic of Scientific Discovery, that the main problem of epistemology is and has always been the growth of knowledge. Advocates of naturalistic epistemology have typically countered by emphasizing the role of our cognitive goals in normative epistemic evaluations. Naturalistic epistemology can be normative, on this view, because it can explain and detect the causal connections between our belief-forming processes and our cognitive goals.
Epistemic value, on this approach, is a form of instrumental value; it derives from the causal ties between cognitive means and valuable cognitive ends. Some critics of naturalistic epistemology, notably Harvey Siegel, have argued that there must be some form of non-instrumental epistemic value.
In light of their criticisms, advocates of naturalistic epistemology need either to show how a scientific approach can accommodate non-instrumental value or to explain why there is no need to do so. Naturalistic epistemologists seek an understanding of knowledge that is scientifically informed and integrated with the rest of our understanding of the world. Their methods and commitments differ, because they have varying views about the precise relationship between science and epistemology and even about which sciences are most important to understanding knowledge.
In addressing particular issues, naturalists often make one of two general sorts of moves. The first is to try to show the issue is empirical and then to apply scientific data, results, methods, and theories to it directly. This is what happens when naturalists offer accounts of a priori knowledge based on cognitive psychology, and even when they offer naturalized conceptual analyses that they take to be based on empirical information concerning how concepts are applied.
This is what happens when naturalists reject Cartesian skeptical problems, on the grounds those problems presuppose that our beliefs about the external world require external validation before they can be fully justified.
Despite its promise, naturalistic epistemology does face serious challenges from the problems of circularity and normativity. It is far from clear they are more serious than the challenges traditional, a priori epistemology faces, but naturalists certainly need solutions to the problems.
Finding those solutions is one of the most important philosophical projects in this field that aims to unify science and philosophy. Chase B. Wrenn Email: cwrenn bama. Naturalistic Epistemology Naturalistic epistemology is an approach to the theory of knowledge that emphasizes the application of methods, results, and theories from the empirical sciences.
Key Figures in Naturalistic Epistemology a. Quine W. Alvin Goldman Unlike Quine, Alvin Goldman is concerned with such traditional epistemological problems as developing an adequate theoretical understanding of knowledge and justified believing.
Thomas Kuhn Much naturalistic epistemology looks to psychology and, in certain cases, the natural sciences to develop an understanding of knowledge. Internalism and Externalism The debate between internalists and externalists concerns whether anything besides mental states helps to constitute the justification of beliefs.
A priori Knowledge A priori knowledge, if there is any, is knowledge obtained independently of experience. The Problem of Induction There is no standard naturalistic solution to the problem of induction, but naturalism does provide a general strategy for dealing with the problem.
Problems for Naturalistic Epistemology Naturalistic epistemologies have it in common that they apply scientific methods, results, and theories to epistemological problems, though they differ in just which sciences they draw on and how central a place they give to those sciences. The Problem of Normativity Another problem for naturalistic epistemology is explaining epistemic normativity. Conclusion Naturalistic epistemologists seek an understanding of knowledge that is scientifically informed and integrated with the rest of our understanding of the world.
References and Further Reading Bloor, D. The strengths of the strong programme. Philosophy of the social sciences , v. Davidson, D. A coherence theory of truth and knowledge. In his: Inquiries into truth and interpretation. Oxford, UK: Clarendon. Gigerenzer, G. Simple heuristics that make us smart. New York: Oxford U P. Goldman, A. A causal theory of knowing. Journal of philosophy , v. Discrimination and perceptual knowledge. Epistemology and cognition. Liasons: Philosophy meets the cognitive and social sciences.
In: Tomberlin, J. Cambridge, UK: Blackwell. Knowledge in a social world. Kahneman, D. Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Kim, J. Philosophical Perspectives , v.
Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview. Kitcher, P. The philosophical review , v. The naturalists return. Philosophical Review , v.
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