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Naturalizing Epistemology: Quine, Simon and the Prospects for Pragmatism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

Stephen Stich
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Extract

In recent years there has been a great deal of discussion about the prospects of developing a ‘naturalized epistemology’, though different authors tend to interpret this label in quite different ways. One goal of this paper is to sketch three projects that might lay claim to the ‘naturalized epistemology’ label, and to argue that they are not all equally attractive. Indeed, I'll maintain that the first of the three—the one I'll attribute to Quine—is simply incoherent. There is no way we could get what we want from an epistemological theory by pursuing the project Quine proposes. The second project on my list is a naturalized version of reliabilism. This project is not fatally flawed in the way that Quine's is. However, it's my contention that the sort of theory this project would yield is much less interesting than might at first be thought.

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Papers
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Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 34 , March 1993 , pp. 1 - 17
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1993

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