Two Points Against Naturalized Epistemology :: Epistemology Research Papers

Two Points Against Naturalized Epistemology ABSTRACT: My aim is to raise two points against naturalizing epistemology. First, against Quine’s version of naturalizing epistemology, I claim that the traditional questions of epistemology are indispensable, in that they impose themselves in every attempt to construct an epistemology. These epistemological questions are pre- and extra-scientific questions; they are beyond the scientific domain of research, thus, for a distinct province of inquiry. Second, I claim that no naturalistic account can be given as an answer to the traditional question of justification. I take Goldman’s and Haack’s accounts as examples to support my claim. The traditional demand of justification is to start from nowhere. Naturalizing justification is to start form somewhere. The two approaches are, thus, necessarily incompatible with each other. So, the accounts given by the naturalists are not answers to the traditional problem of justification. To remain compatible with themselves, t he 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. Introduction: 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. as "naturalized epistemology". (1) 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.